1925
by Brunette
Summary: When our favorite adventurers set out for Hamunaptra, they had no idea just how closely they were all connected. Romance and business, heartache and happiness, hatred and laughter bind them all in a series of peculiarly attached events. Set six months before Hamunaptra.
1. Late

_Author's Note: I got the idea for this really recently, and just couldn't rest until I got it started. This is basically a series of events that are unexpectedly connected, a la _Crash_ ('cause who doesn't love _Crash?_ "Brendan Fraser, you're alive! I was so very, very worried.") And really, who doesn't love the idea of all the characters having these connections they didn't even know about prior to the movie?_

_Disclaimer: The characters of _The Mummy_ are the property of Universal Studios__. _

* * *

**1925**

* * *

**Late**

_November 9, 1925_

"You're late."

Jonathan breathed a sigh and looked up at his sister helplessly, hoping his face had that worn, heartbroken appearance he'd been trying to force onto it all day. Evelyn raised her eyebrows at him and took a sip of tea, studying him with suspicious contemplation. He could very well imagine what she was thinking.

"Well sit down," she said at last, motioning at the chair across from her. "I've already ordered us some of that falafel you're so fond of as an appetizer."

Before he could stop himself, his face lit up happily. Evelyn kept eyeing him, and he tried to resume his previous melancholy.

"You want me to ask what's the matter," she said, her hand flexing on the teacup.

Jonathan loosened his collar and bumbled about in an exaggerated form of forced nonchalance. He glanced around the courtyard of the restaurant where they were eating: a humble but reputable little place famed for its whitewashed local cuisine that was open from breakfast til tea, and always drew the regular lot of tourists and British citizens alike. They were sitting outside, as Evelyn always preferred this time of year. It was a pleasant November and Jonathan really had no reason to complain, only -

"Viola," he said with a heavy sigh.

Evelyn's eyes widened briefly, and then narrowed. "What about her?"

Jonathan let out another long, wistful sigh, his shoulders rising and falling hopelessly. "Well, Evy...I'm afraid we're on the brink of it."

"The brink of what?" she asked, impatient and confused.

Jonathan glanced up at her a few times and tried to decide if he could get away with slipping his flask out of his pocket right then.

"The end," he told her dramatically.

Evelyn stared at him, her mouth gaping for the want of angry words. The only thing she could muster was a painfully shrill, "_Jonathan_!"

Jonathan could feel the curious and disapproving glances of the other restaurant patrons, and held up his hands in surrender, trying to calm her down.

"Now, Evy, I know this is something of a disappointment - for _both_ of us - "

"'Both of us,' poppycock!" she shouted, just as loud as before. Jonathan winced, but Evelyn clearly didn't care about his discomfort. She wagged a finger at him accusingly. "You've...been doing it, haven't you?"

Jonathan exaggerated a shrug and told her innocently, "I don't know what you mean by that, old mum - "

"Oh, you do, too," she retorted. "You're doing it, aren't you? You're being an insufferable ass hoping she'll break up with you."

Jonathan grimaced, waving his hand dismissively. "Now why on earth would I do that?"

"Because it's what you do," she said testily. "It's what you _always_ do, no matter how many times I've told you. A woman wants a clean break. You're leading her on."

Jonathan started to say something, but much to his relief, the waitress arrived with their falafel.

"Ah, look!" he said brightly. "The food's here. Darling, you wouldn't happen to have a decent mid-range scotch, would you?"

The waitresses brow furrowed in a frown. "I'll go check."

"I'd very much appreciate that," he said, flashing a smile. He could feel Evelyn watching him as the waitress hurried away.

"Jonathan, it's only eleven."

"Well, so what? I'm on my way to be broken up with after this, have my heart ripped right out of my chest - "

"Oh, stop," his sister cut in tersely. "I don't want to hear it. You've been sick of this girl for weeks. You just haven't had the stones to break it off yourself."

Jonathan balked. "I'll have you know I have plenty of stones...Er, you know, the appropriate amount..."

Evelyn stared back at him incredulously. "Jonathan, you're a grown man whose greatest fear is having a woman shed a tear in his presence."

"Oh, now...that's hardly my _greatest_ fear, old mum. Not as long as spiders resist extinction."

Evelyn was too frustrated to be amused. "You've been leading her on. It isn't fair to her."

Jonathan waved his hand dismissively. "Oh, you just don't know women like I do."

Evelyn sat up in her seat. "I'm sorry, what?"

But he managed to meet her eyes with a perfectly serious expression. "You don't. You lecture me over this clean break nonsense, but you don't know the first thing about women."

Evelyn couldn't help but to chuckle. Her mouth jerked somewhere between amusement and offense. "Jonathan, I know I'm your sister and all, but certainly you haven't forgotten that_ I'm_ a woman, have you?"

Jonathan raised his eyebrows. "Oh, please, Evy. You don't count. Maybe _you'd_ like a clean break, but you're also the only twenty-six-year-old woman on the planet who isn't concerned at all about getting married."

Evelyn blinked, staring back at him in confusion. "I care about getting married - "

"Pigswallow. Do you even _have_ a biological clock?"

She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. "Jonathan, I'm a woman, too. And - and just because I have concerns _other than_ engagement rings and babies, doesn't mean I don't know how a woman thinks!"

Jonathan leaned back in his seat, staring at her with that same, dismissive expression on his face. "Evy, trust me. This is for the best."

Evelyn sighed, giving him a hard eye. "You know you're hurting her much worse this way."

He met her gaze evenly. "Oh, you think so?"

"I know so!"

"Really," he said, reaching for a ball of falafel with thoughtful precision. "Do you remember Mary Wallace?"

Evelyn blinked in confusion, and then shrugged. "Of course."

"Do you remember that time she got bloody drunk at New Year's Eve and tried to French kiss Catherine Forsythe?"

Evelyn shifted in her seat and grimaced. "I think everybody remembers that..."

"Yes," Jonathan said, pointing a finger at her. "Do you want to know _why_ she got so blood drunk?" He didn't even wait for her to answer. "It was because I had just broken up with her. Clean break, you say? Pigswallow, I say!" Evelyn started to shake her head incredulously, but Jonathan sat up, animated and convinced. "Believe me, Evy, no woman on earth wants a clean break. You see, if I'm a regular cad for a few weeks, a woman starts to realize, 'You know, I'm not so certain I want to marry this fellow after all.' It takes a while, of course, especially for someone like Viola who insists on dragging me past every jeweler's display window in the whole bloody city, but eventually she realizes it. And then _she_ break it off with _me,_ and we all walk away happier. She's already decided I'm not the bloke for her and she moves on to somebody else, and that's the end of it. Break it off with a woman, and she's so bloody dismal, she's bound to do something insane."

Evelyn let out a sigh, still watching him with skeptical eyebrows raised, but she didn't argue with him. She picked up her tea and took a little sip, frowning at how cold it had gotten over the course of their conversation. She put the cup back on the saucer and glanced about the courtyard thoughtfully, probably in search of the waitress, before turning her attention back to her brother again.

"Look, Jonathan, if you don't want to be in a relationship with Viola, that's fine by me," she said at last. "I just assume it's going to make things a tad...uncomfortable when you introduce me to her uncle."

Jonathan sucked in a breath and grimaced. He knew he couldn't avoid the topic forever. He'd just hoped his scotch would have shown up before he had to tell her.

_"Jonathan,"_ Evelyn said, pointed and suspicious.

He loosened his collar. "I say, where did that waitress run off to...?"

"You _did_ meet Viola's uncle, didn't you?"

Jonathan shrugged uncomfortably, and told her in a small voice, "Well...not - not exactly, no - "

"Jonathan!"

He looked up at her as helplessly as he could. "I meant to, Evy, I really did! Only I think Viola was grooming him for a conversation of a - a marital nature, and I just sort of...avoided it?"

"Ooh!" Evelyn huffed, jumping out of her seat. She glared down at him, angry tears welling in her eyes. "Jonathan, for once - _for just once_ - I wish you'd think about someone else besides yourself!"

"Evy - "

But she wasn't interested in hearing him out. She shook a finger at him, her whole body trembling with frustration. And probably disappointment, too.

"You haven't any idea what it's like being a woman in this field! Everyone sees _your_ name and says, 'Oh, that's Nigel Carnahan's son! Let's hire him!' Nevermind the fact that you're a perfect idiot who can't tell Hebrew from Aramaic! I've worked bloody hard and for the first time I might have had an opportunity to go on a_ real_ dig, under the supervision of a _real_ archeologist, but no! You had to go and ruin it by being selfish!"

Jonathan balked, glaring back at her defensively. "I'm sorry, but did you_ really_ want me to pretend I was going to marry a woman just so you could go on a dig?"

Evelyn huffed, her eyes narrowed. "Oh, but you damn well pretended you were going to marry her when you talked her into going to bed with you, didn't you?!"

Jonathan winced, staring sheepishly at the table to avoid the glances of the restaurant patrons seated all around them. He could feel Evelyn staring at him, so very hurt and angry with him. He could feel her eyes and wished there was something he could say to make it better.

She straightened her shoulders and told him. "I've lost my appetite. Enjoy your lunch."

Evelyn turned on her heel and strode off.

"Evy!"

Jonathan fumbled out of his chair and tripped after her, but she was much too fast. She flung open the door leading into the restaurant's interior, and he just barely managed to catch it. He propelled forward and ran right into a man trying to slip outside. Jonathan briefly registered the odd scars on his face before catching his balance.

"Hey! Watch yourself there, mate!"

The man said nothing and snuck on out. Jonathan breathed a disgruntled sigh, scanning the restaurant wildly for his sister's form, but she was gone. He didn't even notice a couple more men shove past him, but when he finally looked away from the front of the restaurant, defeated, his gaze collided with the wide, dark eyes of the waitress.

He scowled at her in his annoyance, even though he knew she wasn't to blame for his falling out with Evelyn.

"Would you _please_ get me some bloody scotch?!" he demanded.


	2. Scars

_Author's Note: I know, a quick update! But I wanted to get the whole interconnectivity ball rolling._

_Disclaimer: The characters of _The Mummy_ are the property of Universal Studios__. _

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**1925**

* * *

**Scars**

_November 9, 1925_

"Y-yes, sir. Of course," Rashida said hurriedly, trying to hide the way her whole body was still trembling from the conversation she'd just had with her brother. She swallowed hard and shuffled behind the bar, scanning the bottles helplessly for the scotch this Englishman was demanding. She blinked and sent up a desperate prayer to Allah that she might be blessed with a moment of good fortune, and reached for the first bottle on the shelf.

Rashida couldn't read English, and she didn't drink. She could only go by the color of the liquid inside the bottles, which wasn't particularly indicative information. She knew scotch was an amber color, though, and she_ thought_ the contents of the greenish bottle in her hand were the right color...

She turned back to the Englishman and held it up hopefully, giving him her most polite smile. "Would this meet your satisfaction, sir?"

The tall, thin man had been scowling towards the front of the restaurant, but turned abruptly at the sound of her voice. He squinted at the label on the bottle in her hand, and - to her great surprise and relief - nodded his head.

"You'll put it on the rocks, won't you, darling?"

Rashida nodded her head weakly and searched the bar for a glass, inwardly cursing the barkeep (wherever on earth he was). After a few fumbling moment, she had the Englishman's scotch prepared to his liking, and let out a deep sigh as he strode back to his table outside, still clearly a little agitated.

That's just what she needed; an angry customer.

Rashida reached a hand up to her face, rubbing that spot between her eyebrows wearily. After such an annoying conversation with Basim, she really couldn't bring herself to care much about the Englishman's displeasure. As far as she could tell, all Englishmen were perpetually displeased, even though they wore fine linen suits and drank themselves foolish.

"Yeah, we'll sit outside."

"Henderson, I got a sunburn color 'a lobster - "

"Shut up, Burns. Outside."

Of course, the English weren't the only ones.

Rashida tried to keep the disgruntled wrinkle out of her lip as she watched the hostess lead the two Americans and their raucous accents through the restaurant and out into the courtyard. She could feel the hostess's eye as they passed and barely resisted the urge to glare at her. _Of course_ another table would come in right now. She was due to be off in fifteen minutes, but now she couldn't leave until these two loud Americans had eaten.

And if Rashida had learned anything about Americans, it was that they were content to blabber on for an eternity, so long as someone was within earshot and they had enough liquor.

She grumbled a sigh and slipped away to the restroom. If she was going to have to stay until these Americans left, then she was going to have to pee first. In the muffled quiet of the bathroom, her mind drifted back to her brother and their conversation.

Ugh, what had gotten into Basim? Had her brother lost his mind, falling into another fool scheme with the likes of Beni Gabor and Izzy Buttons again?

She'd wanted to scream at him, and hit him across his shamed, scarred face. But of course, she couldn't do that. Not here at the restaurant (which was probably why he'd come and interrupted her shift to tell her). He'd probably supposed she couldn't yell at him in front of his good "friends" either, but if he had tried to bring Beni and Izzy by her apartment, he would have found himself sorely mistaken in that assumption. Rashida didn't give a damn about Beni or Izzy, and she certainly didn't care about embarrassing her brother in front of them. Her brother must be a fool - _an absolute fool_ - if he thought he stood anything to gain by trying to impress the likes of them. Didn't he know they were skulking on the bottom rung of the criminal world?

Rashida sighed, blinking away the hot tears threatening to slip past her eyelashes. She already knew Basim was a fool. She might have always known that, but she'd loved him and forgiven him, until -

Someone pounded on the door, and Rashida jumped.

"Just a minute!" she called, readying herself as quickly as she could and opening the door. She gave the customer a weak smile and slipped quickly down the hall, reminding herself that she was still at work, and there would be time to think all of this over after work.

Izzy wasn't so bad, but_ Beni._ Oh, how she hated that pale, sniveling little excuse for a man.

_How is your son?_ he had the audacity to ask, his mouth spread in a yellow sneer and his eyes glinting.

That horrible, scummy bastard.

_How is your son?_

_Oh..._but she wasn't going to think about any of this, and especially not Beni Gabor. She pulled an unconvincing smile and strode out into the courtyard, squinting against the midday sunlight as she neared the table where her new customers were chatting. Well,_ one_ of them was chatting. He had shaggy blond hair under a cowboy hat, and somehow managed to yak on loudly around an enormous wad of chewing tobacco. His friend sat there quietly, fiddling with the spectacles in his hands and nodding his head.

"Where_ is_ Dave at, anyways?"

The one with the spectacles jerked a stiff shrug. "Said he'd be here 'round noon, Henderson."

Henderson scoffed. "Well I'm starvin'. He better not take too long."

His friend sighed. "Just get a drink. By the time you finish it, he'll be here and we can order some food."

Henderson grumbled something in agreement and glanced up, as if just then noticing Rashida there at the table in front of them. Her thin, forced smile hadn't left her lips yet.

"Good afternoon gentlemen. Can I offer you anything to drink besides water?"

"Sure as hell can," Henderson told her. "Think I'm gonna drink your dal-garn water and get dysentery? Get me a bourbon to start out with."

Rashida nodded her head and turned to his friend, who told her he'd have the same in a kind, quiet voice. She held back a sigh until she turned away from their table, and hurried back inside to give their order to the barkeep. Even though she knew she should have stopped, she brushed past the Englishman's table. He was still nursing that scotch and had barely nibbled into one of the falafel balls, and she was fairly certain he was in no mood to eat. Not since that woman, whom she'd gathered was his sister, had stormed out of the restaurant.

Rashida chuckled humorlessly to herself. She imagined going over to his table and putting a hand on his shoulder, and telling him, _I know just what you're going through. Siblings are idiots..._

Maybe she was doing her sweet little Fadil a favor, scandalizing herself with his illegitimate birth and likely never finding a husband or having another child ever again. Maybe it would be better for him if he never had to deal with a brother as dim-witted and selfish as hers.

She swallowed hard, because there were those tears again, always burning in the corners of her eyes. Always burning, because if she had learned nothing else from becoming a mother, she'd learned that there was no relief from the ache of loving that little boy. There was no relief from the ache of knowing he would have to shoulder the shame of being the bastard of a despicable man.

_How is your son?_

Basim would certainly get himself in prison again, no thanks to whatever poorly-planned scheme Beni and Izzy had come up with._ Well,_ she huffed to herself, _this time he can just stay there. Let him hang by his neck. See if I care._

But of course, Rashida _did_ care. The mere thought of her brother hanging from a noose, limp and lifeless, flies buzzing about the ridged scars where sacred tattoos used to be, made her weak. She couldn't bear to lose Basim, even if he _was_ useless. Even if he _did_ run around with lowlifes like Beni and Izzy, landing himself in prison. Even if he _had_ so disgraced himself as a Med-Jai that his tattoos had been burned from his face and he'd been banished forever, ruining him and her and their entire family's reputation.

Even if he'd cost her the betrothal of the one man she'd ever truly loved.

Rashida sucked back a breath and glanced up, just then noticing the glasses of bourbon sitting before her, sweating in the heat. She frowned at the half-melted ice cubes and hoped her American customers didn't mind their whiskey on the weaker side, snatching them quickly from the counter and hurrying back into the courtyard.

She'd tell Basim he could do as he pleased, but she would not tolerate Beni and Izzy in her home again. Neither of them would be allowed to lounge about smoking cigars and talking crudely about women. Neither of them would be allowed to spend the night.

They _especially_ wouldn't be allowed to spend the night.

She wasn't about to allow either of those men to sleep under her roof. Not while there was a breath in her body. Rashida told herself she had a good reason to stand firm, now. She had Fadil to think about. She didn't want people like them around her son, even if he_ was_ just a baby.

"Thanks," Burns murmured, offering her a smile that forced her out of her swirling thoughts. Rashida returned a smile and told him he was welcome.

His friend Mr. Henderson wasn't as polite. He gnawed on his tobacco and frowned into the glass, and for a moment she was sure he was going to scold her for letting the bourbon get so watered down. But all he said was:

"Christ, where the hell _is_ Dave, anyway?"


	3. Borrowed

_Disclaimer: The characters of _The Mummy_ are the property of Universal Studios__. _

* * *

**1925**

* * *

**Borrowed**

_November 9, 1925_

Dave was in a cramped but clean little apartment a surprisingly few blocks away from the restaurants his friends were drinking in, considering the economic status of the people who lived in the building. He'd been a strange sight, pushing past a few Arab tenants loitering in the stairwell, impatient to get to the third floor. Impatient to get to the fifth door and knock on it. He'd glanced up and down the hallway frantically, but then the door had opened, and he stopped worrying.

He'd met a pair of clear green eyes and hungered for those smiling lips, but she had a finger up against them and whispered, "The baby just fell asleep."

Dave had nodded his head and tried to walk on the balls of his feet as he picked his way inside. No sooner had she inched the door closed, than she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him into that kiss he'd been longing to give her since that morning.

Now he found himself in the twisted, white sheets of a bed that belonged to neither of them, in a bright square of sunlight pooling in from the window. And there she was next to him, staring up at the ceiling with her eyes that strange and enchanting shade of pale green. She stared at the ceiling and smoked a cigarette, and opened her mouth to say something - but a noise stopped her short.

"He can't be up already!" she lamented, glancing the clock next to the bed. She froze where she was and listened. And sure enough, another little waking cry came. With a groan, she pulled herself out of the bed and threw on his shirt.

"Hey, that's mine!" he laughed at her. She turned in the doorway and gave him a coy wink before slipping out of the room.

They were in a little one-bedroom flat that seemed bigger than it was because there was hardly any furniture. She told him that usually the baby slept in bed, but she'd arranged a soft place for him on the floor using every blanket she could find, and he'd slept well enough there while they borrowed the bedroom.

She came back in a second later with the baby in her arms - a small, dark little boy with thick black hair and large eyes.

"Now Minnie, you're gonna have to explain to me," Dave said, eyeing the child in amusement, "how it is a white woman ends up carin' for a brown baby, 'cause where I come from, things're done the other way around."

Minnie shrugged, grinning at the baby to get him to smile. "Friend of a friend, I don't know. Rick knows Fadil's uncle or something. Or he knows people who know him...Anyway, it's a fine job. It doesn't really pay, but it gives me plenty of alone time to write." She glanced up and flashed him a devilish smile. "Or it _would,_ anyway."

Dave chuckled.

Minnie came from Wisconsin, a part of the States Dave had never been to (and couldn't say he had any interest in ever visiting). She said the only thing she ever wanted to do was be a writer, but her old German family didn't consider holing up in a room making up stories any kind of work. _A person's only as valuable as the work they do, _she'd told him. _I swear, they would have been prouder if I'd hitched myself to a plow like a horse than to publish a book._ So she decided she'd leave Wisconsin. She decided she'd go on a grand adventure and write all about it, and it occurred to her to go to the hottest place she could think of.

That's how she said she'd found herself in Egypt, anyway.

"Here," she said, holding out the baby to him. "You take him and I'll straighten up the bed."

Dave's brow furrowed, and a distasteful wrinkle found its way into his upper lip. "So this is it for today, then?"

Minnie sighed, casting a look at the baby. "I'm afraid so. He won't go back down until three, and by then his mother will be back from work."

Dave groaned and reluctantly took little Fadil out of her arms, holding him with a tenderness he probably didn't realize he had. Minnie smiled to herself and started making the bed. For a while, the room was quiet. She was only vaguely aware of the way Dave was studying the baby, until he said:

"So what's the deal? His ma a widow or somethin', can't stay home with her own kid?"

Without looking up, she told him, "No. She's never been married."

"No kiddin'?" Dave said, frowning thoughtfully at the baby as if he might find some physical indication that he was illegitimate.

"I don't really know the story," Minnie said, turning her attention to untangling her stockings and garters on the floor. "And it's not polite to ask, but I know the Arab women won't have anything to do with Rashida." She paused, her hands flexing on the garters. "I get the impression it's on account of the father, but...who knows? Perhaps it really _is_ just because Fadil's a bastard."

She slipped on her dress and straightened her skirt over her legs. She glanced up to take Fadil from Dave, but she stopped and watched him for just a moment. She couldn't resist the wry smile on her lips at the sight of Dave, standing there in only his underwear, holding an Arab baby.

"You like babies, don't you?"

Dave rolled his eyes. "Who doesn't like a baby? Christ, Minnie."

She stifled a chuckle. "He suits you."

Dave scoffed, shifting his weight uncomfortably. "Yeah. _This_ is natural."

Minnie gently took the baby from his arms. "I wasn't making fun of you. I think it's sweet."

Dave let out a sigh and occupied himself with getting dressed. He pretended to ignore the sound of Minnie cooing at the baby, rocking him and trying to get him to giggle. But after a while, he had to look at her there, swaying with a baby in her arms. He had to look at the smile on her face and the brightness in her eyes. And he had to smile, if only just a little.

"Suits you, too," he murmured.

Minnie glanced up. "I suppose he does." She added with a teasing grin, "But who doesn't like babies?"

"Shut up."

She laughed aloud now, bouncing Fadil on her hip as she made her way over to the door of the bedroom. Dave watched her as his fingers toyed with his tie.

"You gonna have any of your own?"

Minnie stopped short and gave him a stiff shrug. "I suppose. Most everyone does..."

Dave frowned. "I didn't know, what with your writin' if you was one 'a them liberated women, never settle down or have a family..."

She stared at the floor, shifting her weight now and then to keep Fadil happy. "I don't know. Maybe it won't be for a while..."

"But you want a family, don't you." He didn't ask her the question. He could tell from the way she was standing there with a baby that wasn't even hers. He could tell her answer.

She met his eyes. "Yes."

He stared back at her steadily. "You gonna have a family with your fella Rick?"

He watched her throat jerk with a nervous swallow, and she shook her head.

"We're just...passing the time," she said, barely above a whisper. His gaze, heavy and serious, bore into hers. She didn't realize she was holding her breath.

"And what about me?" he asked boldly. "You just passin' the time with me, too?"

Minnie managed to suck in a breath, standing there frozen and dumbfounded by his words. She tried to swallow and couldn't, and she blinked her eyes hard even though there weren't any tears there.

"Well are ya?"

Minnie pressed her lips together and glanced away.

"I'm afraid to say it," she told him, desperate and quiet. "I'm afraid to say I'm not only to find out you are..."

She met his eyes, and in and instant he crossed the room and kissed her. He'd never kissed a woman while she was holding a baby before, but he liked it. He liked the thought of kissing her just like this someday, with a baby of their own lounging on her hip. He liked the thought of it.

Their lips parted and he looked her gravely in the eye. "You break it off with that fella. You're done with him."

Minnie nodded her head weakly. "Okay."

"You're_ done_ with him."

"Okay."

He kissed her again, and then took a step back. He knew he was well past late for meeting Henderson and Burns, but he didn't care. Minnie was going to be his; she loved him, too. And for the first time, he felt like the last month in Egypt hadn't been a complete waste. He thought he'd be knee-deep in treasure by now. But he was quickly finding out that organizing an excavation - a _real_ one, that would actually pay out in big bucks - took a lot more time and work than he and his friends had anticipated.

Leave it to Henderson to come up with a half-assed fool scheme like this and get them stuck in a godforsaken country like Egypt, indefinitely.

"I gotta go," he told her. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Minnie nodded her head, and he strode out of the apartment feeling happy and in some way, accomplished. The blistering sun didn't bother him, or the dust in his eyes. He had Minnie. He was going to work it out with her. He knew she'd been shacking up with some other American somebody named Rick. He didn't know anything about the man other than that. She said she couldn't afford her own place, and she and Rick got along okay, so they decided they'd just stay together for a while. The kind of thing Bohemians like her did, he supposed. But now she didn't need Rick. Dave would set her up with her own place; keep it honest, or at least make it look like it was -

He stopped abruptly when he realized he'd passed the restaurant, and turned to go back. As he came to the door, he saw a tall, slender brunette slip out of a gleaming maroon Studebaker. The sun played over the stiff waves of her almost-black hair, shorn fashionably at her jaw. She was wearing something fluttery and fashionable, but the only thing about her dress Dave paid any attention to was the hemline, which came up just a little shorter than was proper, even for rich girls who were driven about in Studebakers. He yanked open the door for her and she just barely murmured a "thank you."

He frowned thoughtfully, and watched her legs as she wove around the tables and found her place at one in particular, reserved near the window under the fan.

"There you are!" someone shouted from across the restaurant. Dave glanced up and saw Henderson leaning against the bar, his usual affable expression on his face despite the irritation in his voice. "We ordered you a prime rib, but honest to God, didn't think you was gonna show at all."

"Well," Dave retorted testily. "Here I am."


	4. Settling

_Author's Note: I know, I'm kind of on a roll..._

_Disclaimer: The characters of _The Mummy_ are the property of Universal Studios__. _

* * *

**1925**

* * *

**Settling**

_November 9, 1925_

Viola crossed her legs under the table and reached for a cigarette from her purse, finding herself more annoyed than relieved by the fan whirring overhead. She'd expected her uncle to be here by now, since the man could never resist an opportunity to be anywhere first, but the reserved table was quiet and empty in the midst of the lunch time rush. She glanced up, hoping to hook one of the waiters with her dark-colored stare. She needed a drink and badly, and it was in her best interest to finish one before her uncle arrived and stared at her disapprovingly. But when she looked up, she caught a glimpse of a familiar form in a cream linen suit, and she forgot all about finding a waiter and getting a drink. Her lips parted in something between surprise and distaste. She was going to look away, but his eyes locked on hers, and then she couldn't escape him.

He stumbled over to her, obviously a touch on the wrong side of sober, his blue eyes wide and determined. She waited until he stood over her at the table to glance up at him again, breathing out a wisp of smoke that floated in the sunlight between them.

"Viola! I need to talk to you!"

"Well you can save it, Jonathan," she told him calmly. "After last night, I never want to speak to you again."

Jonathan's hands gripped the back of an empty chair in desperation. "Darling, _please,_ it's important - "

Viola held up a dismissive hand and pretended to find something interesting to gaze at out the window.

_"Viola - "_

"I don't care, Jonathan," she snapped, turning back to him in bristling ferocity. "You've made it more than evident that you're entirely undeserving of my attention. Now I'm going to ask you to leave before my uncle arrives."

Jonathan's eyes bugged in a way she might have found comical if she wasn't so angry with him.

"Your uncle is coming? Here?"

Viola's brow furrowed in confusion, and before she could even nod her head, he was fumbling his way into the chair next to her.

"What are you doing?" she demanded. "You can't sit here!"

"You don't understand, darling. It's important - "

_"You_ don't understand," she retorted, her voice raising darkly. "I don't care how important it is, you're not sitting at this table with me."

Jonathan stared into her eyes desperately. He tried to reach for her hand, but she quickly snatched it away. "Please, Viola, just hear me out. You see, I may have promised my sister that I would introduce her to your uncle. She's a very talented Egyptologist and she only wants to get her start, but you know the way these academics are. It's all politics and who-you-know, and what have you, and no one's willing to give her a fair shake."

Viola breathed an impatient sigh and raised an eyebrow. With an air of serenity that surprised her, she took another drag from her cigarette and asked him, "Is she quite talented?"

He bobbled his head. She gave him a grim smile.

"Then it's truly a pity you've gone and ruined everything for her."

"But - "

"Leave, Jonathan," she told him sternly. "I don't ever want to see you again."

"Viola - "

Her hands tightened into fists under the table. "Do you want me to have them drag you out?"

Jonathan looked for a moment like he might argue with her, but then he sighed and his shoulders slumped in defeat. With a dismal shake of his head, he got up from the chair and started to go.

She could feel him watching her, but she refused to look him in the eye.

"For what it's worth, I'm very sorry," he told her.

Viola let out a sigh and shook her head. She didn't even want to look at him, but she had to tell him to his face: "It's much too late for that."

He held up his hands helplessly. "I'm just not the settling down type, darling."

Viola's eyes narrowed. She turned in her seat and glared up at him, too infuriated to care that it was hardly the cool, femme fatale thing to do. "Let me tell _you_ something, Jonathan Carnahan. You might think you're still a spring chicken, but that's hardly the case. You're a thirty-five-year-old boy and when you do finally decide to settle down, it'll be with a match considerably worse than me."

Jonathan grimaced. For a moment she thought he might try to retort something in his own defense, but he quickly decided better of it. She watched him stumble away awkwardly, and breathed a shaking breath. She took another long drag from her cigarette, closing her eyes as she breathed in the dry relief of smoke. When she opened her eyes, her uncle was standing there at the table with a man she'd never met before.

"Viola, how surprising to see you here so early," her uncle said in his stiff, wooden voice. She forced a smile for him as he adjusted his monocle and motioned to his companion. "This is Dr. Emil Bartos. He's an old colleague of mine."

Viola offered the man a pleasant smile and shook his hand. He was a short, thick fellow with thinning hair and a pompous moustache, but his gray eyes were friendly and she liked his strange accent when he said:

"A pleasure to meet you, Miss Chamberlain."

Her brow furrowed curiously. "Dr. Bartos, where are you from? I don't believe I recognize your accent."

The smile on his chubby face widened. "You probably have not heard such an accent, coming from Boston. I am from Hungary."

Viola offered him another polite smile and said, "Ah."

"He speaks English rather well, doesn't he?" her uncle said, barely able to mask his condescending tone or the smug set of his mouth. But Dr. Bartos only chuckled good-naturedly.

"Much better than you can speak Hungarian, Allen."

Her uncle's smirk dampened, and he pretended to occupy himself with his menu. "Where on earth is the waiter?"

Dr. Bartos glanced back at Viola, his eyes twinkling. "Now Miss Chamberlain, how is it that a fashionable American girl like yourself should find herself in Egypt, staying with a crusty _zsémbes öregember_ like my good friend Allen?"

Allen paused in his disgruntled scanning of the restaurant to turn to Dr. Bartos with suspicious eyes. "What did you just call me?"

Dr. Bartos blew a raspberry and waved his hand dismissively. "Nothing, Allen. I have called you my friend. That is all."

Allen raised a skeptical eyebrow, but turned his attention back to scouting a waiter. Dr. Bartos chuckled and leaned closer to Viola, "I called him a 'grumpy old man.' I will teach you how to say, and then we will drive him crazy."

Despite the foul mood Jonathan had put her in, Viola chuckled genuinely when Dr. Bartos gave her a wink and settled back into his seat. She took a drag from her cigarette, and suddenly remembered his question.

"Oh, um. As to what I'm doing here," she began. "I suppose it's in my blood, isn't it? Every Chamberlain to speak of is an anthropologist or archeologist - "

"Or missionary," Dr. Bartos added, casting a teasing look towards Allen.

Viola's uncle sucked in a breath and turned to glare at him in half-lidded annoyance. "That was_ one_ cousin, and he was eaten by cannibals."

Dr. Bartos chuckled and gave Viola a nudge. "He talks as if the man deserved it."

She bit back a smile. But Allen only said in his dark, disagreeable voice, "I detest missionaries."

Dr. Bartos laughed. "Listen to him! I suppose you also detest beautiful women and rainbows, eh, Allen? Who hates missionaries? They go out into these terrible places, to these people that nobody will love, and they say to them, 'We love you! Christ loves you!' And they give them food and clothes, and help them to make a life for themselves, and they give them the hope of Christ. Now, who would hate somebody like that?"

"I've explained it to you a dozen times. I have no interest in explaining it again."

Dr. Bartos shook his head, catching Viola's glance again. "We go around and around, you see. Your uncle is so serious about everything. And he thinks he will...how is it said? About a goat? ...Ah! He thinks he will get my goat because I am a man of faith _and_ a man of science."

Allen gave him the severest edge of his glare. "You can't be both, Emil."

But Dr. Bartos only laughed. "I will stop getting your goat now, Allen. On my heart."

Allen might have rolled his eyes, but they were much too narrowed to give him away. At last he succeeded in flagging down a waiter and they ordered drinks. Between a fine scotch and Dr. Bartos's cheerful disposition and endearing accent, Viola was starting to feel her frustration with Jonathan melt away. She sipped at her drink and laughed aloud, surprised that such a day could be so unexpectedly enjoyable. Even her uncle had a thin smile on his face, and she found herself wishing that Dr. Bartos had come to visit much sooner.

She'd been living with her Uncle Allen for almost a year now, ever since her father's unfortunate heart attack. Her father had several brothers and sisters, and she still wasn't sure how she'd ended up with the least pleasant of all of them. Her Aunt Eunice must have arranged it. She had probably figured that Allen needed someone taking care of him, since his wife had decided to stay back in Boston this time. Neither Allen nor Viola were particularly fond of the arrangement, but they soon fell into a comfortable routine. Viola had always been able to find her own amusement, and she spent most of her time away from Allen's stuffy, mahogany home. And if Cairo started to bore her, she'd take a trip up the river, into the heart of Egypt where more of her family was staying in Aswan.

She'd actually just decided she would go to Aswan next week, after her fallout with Jonathan last night. Aswan was just what she needed, the big gorgeous lake and the breeze and her bathing suit. It was be so glorious that she'd forget all about Jonathan Carnahan. She'd forget his lovely eyes and his clever jokes, and the only thing she'd ever remember was what a terrible, drunken fool he was. The kind of terrible, drunken fool who kissed other girls while she was only in the bathroom...

Viola blinked hard and shook those thoughts from her head. She was having such a pleasant time with her uncle's friend Dr. Bartos, and she wasn't going to dampen her lunch with disappointments concerning Jonathan. She shoved away the memory of last night and found her way back into their conversation, which had inevitably turned to ancient ruins.

"But you don't _really_ believe that it exists, do you?" Allen was saying, smug and incredulous.

Dr. Bartos shrugged. "It exists or it does not, but the man can describe a few monuments that match descriptions of Hamunaptra, and I am willing to see what he has seen. If it is not Hamunaptra, it is certainly important. So many intact monuments! And if it _is_ Hamunaptra, well..." He smiled and leaned back in his seat. "I do not have to tell you why it is important if it is, in fact, Hamunaptra."

Allen let out a long sigh. "Well, Emil, I'm certainly skeptical. But I'd be interested in your research, if you'd send it over to my office."

Dr. Bartos chuckled. "You can read Hungarian now, Allen?"

The corner of Allen's mouth twitched. "Surely you have_ something_ in a useful language you'd be willing to share."

Dr. Bartos shrugged easily. "I will see what I have."

"Just be careful," Allen told him suddenly, a strange and grim smile creeping into his face. "These desert guides can be quite unsavory characters."

His friend laughed whole-heartedly now, folding his hands on his stomach in the most pleased way. "Did I not tell you? That is the very best part. This guide I have found, he is a Hungarian! And a Hungarian can always trust another Hungarian."


	5. Trust

_Author's Note: This is getting ridiculous. Sorry, other stories._

_Disclaimer: The characters of _The Mummy_ are the property of Universal Studios__. _

* * *

**1925**

* * *

**Trust**

_November 9, 1925_

The Hungarian Dr. Bartos had decided to put his trust in was currently lounging in an apartment that wasn't his, several blocks deep into the dirtier side of town, with a cigarette hanging between his fingers. The heat of the day had come on, blazing and relentless, and most everyone else who lived in the building had the good sense not to be cooped up inside it. But O'Connell owned two fans and both were whirring vigorously, and they made the room bearable enough.

O'Connell wasn't home but Beni knew where he kept his spare key, and he had yet to get more than mildly irritated at Beni and Izzy for inviting themselves in. He couldn't help but to pity them, so thin and destitute, and him with his _two fans_ while they had none at all...

Beni tilted one of the fans towards him a little more and sighed.

"Hey, you're hogging all the air, chap!"

He turned and shot a lazy glare at Izzy.

"You have your own fan right there."

"Yes, but I'm sharing it with our good fellow Basim here. Spread the wealth."

Beni ignored him and took another drag from his cigarette.

"What day are we doing the liquor shop, then?" Basim asked all of the sudden.

Beni blinked heavily, a confused frown set between his eyebrows. "I thought we decided Tuesday...?"

"No, it's no good on Tuesday, remember?" Izzy said. Beni couldn't help but find his animated voice annoying in the sleepy heat. "I can't borrow a car any sooner than Thursday."

Beni shrugged. "So we will do it Thursday."

"Basim can't do it Thursday," Izzy went on impatiently. He turned and looked at their scarfaced friend seriously, and lowered his voice, "We should just do it next week."

Beni's eyes narrowed, and he sat up a little in his seat. "Hey! You know I cannot do it next week."

Izzy met his gaze darkly. "Well who needs you, anyway?"

"I am going to be in the desert next week," Beni whined, shooting him a glare. "You know that."

"Exactly. So you're making your own money. So you've nothing to cry over if we go on and get ours."

Beni crossed his arms over his chest petulantly. "This was my idea."

Izzy scoffed. "Oh, as if you're the first bloke who's ever thought to rob a liquor store."

Beni let out a disgruntled sigh that came out more like a high-pitched groan. He was ready to retort something, but a key was jingling in the lock, and all three of them sat up in anticipation. The group of thin, nervous men might have been holding their breath, anxiously hoping that the owner of the apartment was in a decent mood that afternoon. And they collectively breathed a sigh of relief when a curvy young woman light brown hair slipped inside instead. She caught sight of them with her pale green eyes and gasped back a little cry.

"Oh! What are you all doing here?"

A leering grin spread across Beni's face. "We were just visiting."

"Is Rick here?"

"No, _Minerva_, he's not."

She shot him a vaguely annoyed look and closed the door. She'd made the mistake of telling him a few weeks ago that her full name was Minerva, and that she hated it. _How could anyone name a child something with "nerve" right there in the middle of it?_ He hadn't stopped calling her by her full name since, no matter how many times she insisted he call her Minnie.

She actually put up with it rather well. At least much better than most people put up with Beni. But Minnie said that because she was a writer, she was fascinated by unsavory people like Beni and Izzy. And - probably figuring she had the protection of Rick to rely on - she liked sitting with them and having a drink, listening to their funny accents and crass conversations with scientific interest. She told Beni she was writing him into one of her stories. _There's this thing you do, with your brow and lips, when you can't think of anything to say...you know, as a retort. And I see this character doing it all the time, just like you._ It was odd to be watched so intently, but he supposed being a character in a story was some kind of celebrity, and maybe someday when Minnie was rich from her book, he could demand some credit.

A curious expression tugged at the corner of Minnie's lips when she noticed Basim. Her brow furrowed and she looked him over for a long moment, as if she wasn't quite sure it was him. But of course, it _was_ him. Basim might have been nondescript otherwise - skinny and dark with a prominent Arab nose - but those horrible scars always gave him away.

"I haven't seen you in a long time, Basim. I've just come from taking care of your nephew," she said calmly, not quite glancing at the man. Beni wasn't one to miss the fact that she never quite looked at him, no doubt due to the grisly ridges that covered his face. Basim wouldn't have been so unfortunate-looking if it wasn't for his scars, but he'd been burnt high on his cheekbones and the irregular bunches of skin obscured his eyes just enough to make them look odd, at least from a distance.

"Oh, how is the boy?" Basim asked, more out of some sense of politeness than genuine curiosity. He reached his arms over his head and stretched. "I was on my way to see him, actually..."

"He's fine," Minnie said evenly, still not looking at him. "Rashida is..."

"In a foul mood, I know."

She forced a smile and darted across the room, making a hopeful dash for the water jug. Beni knew before she got there that she would find it empty, but he didn't bother to tell her so. He heard her breathe a disappointed sigh from somewhere behind him, but he ignored her. His gaze found Basim's across the room, suddenly wide and urgent.

_"Don't do the job without me,"_ he said in Arabic. _"We can do it on Tuesday, without Izzy."_

Basim sat up a little, clearing his throat uncomfortably. _"My sister doesn't want me doing jobs with you alone anymore."_

Beni's eyes narrowed. _"Why not?"_

Basim edged a few nervous glances at Izzy, and Beni rolled his eyes. Inevitably, Izzy got suspicious. "Hey, now, gents. What is it the two of you are whispering about in that other language for?"

Beni forced an innocent smile and shrugged before turning his attention back to Basim._ "Why is Rashida upset with me, now? We have always gotten along - "_

_"You know why."_

"Beni!" Izzy stopped and turned his attention to the more manageable of the two, "Basim, you stop it, now! You know I can't keep up when the lot of you speak Arabic. What's this you're mulling over without me?"

"Nothing," Beni snapped impatiently. "We are talking about Rashida."

"Well talk about her in front of all of us. Blimey."

Beni glared at him. "I am not going to talk about Rashida with her little spy in the room."

Minnie let out a loud sigh and plopped down on the other end of the ramshackle sofa Beni had sprawled out on. O'Connell had an impressive (if mismatched) collection of furniture thanks to his handiness and a tendency to spend money on things like secondhand chairs instead of liquor and prostitutes. The sofa was ugly and squeaked when Beni leaned back into it, but when Rick found it near some rich person's dumpster, it was completely broken in two. He'd repaired it, and while it was still ugly, it did a respectable job as a place to sit.

"I'm nobody's spy," Minnie told them. "Rashida and I don't talk. She asks me when the baby ate last, and then she pays me and I leave."

Beni eyed her suspiciously. "I don't believe you. Women always talk. You cannot shut them up."

"Then you must be a woman, mate," Izzy put in. "There's no shuttin' your yapper, is there?"

Beni mocked a sarcastic laugh at him and rolled his eyes.

"So what is it about Rashida, then? Out with it now," Izzy said. "It's the price you pay for talkin' in Arabic in front of me. You'll have the whole conversation over again in the King's English."

Beni stared back at him with half-lidded eyes. "There is nothing to tell..."

Basim yawned. "Beni is just upset that Rashida doesn't like him."

_"Anymore,"_ Beni said. "She does not like me _anymore._ We always used to get along_ very well - "_

"Oh shut up," Basim snapped at his suggestive tone. He managed to kick Beni from where he sat, in a chair just across from the couch. "You never slept with my sister and you know it."

Beni shot him a look and rubbed his shin dramatically. "Did I say we slept together? I said we got along. Very well."

"We all know what you were saying."

Izzy let out a bored sigh, settling himself into his chair and letting his eyelids droop. "I guess I fail to see how any woman not liking you is a headliner."

Beni glared at him. "Rashida does not want him to work with me now. After all I have done, putting food on her table - "

Basim scoffed incredulously. "When did you ever put food on my sister's table?"

Beni met his eyes with a dark smirk. "Right after I screwed her on it."

But, perhaps because he knew the truth of the matter - or perhaps just because it was much too hot and stuffy to make the effort, Basim only rolled his eyes. After a moment the appropriate reaction occurred to him, and with a smug look on his face, he turned and nudged Izzy.

"I _will_ do that liquor store with you next week."

_"Basim,"_ Beni whined. "You can't do it without me!"

"Oh, we're doin' it without you, mate," Izzy told him, his eyes closing again.

Beni huffed a sigh, crossing his arms over his chest. He aimed a betrayed, malicious glare right at Basim. "Fine! Go ahead and do it without me, then. But don't cry to me when you end up in prison, and your sister has to screw the warden to get you off of death row again!"

Basim jumped to his feet, his hands clenched into ready fists. "Stop talking about my sister!"

Under normal circumstances, Beni would have immediately resorted to rushed apologies, but he knew Basim was as much of a coward as he was, and he doubted the Arab man would deliver more than a few half-hearted punches if he managed to work up the gumption to hit him at all. Beni knew how he got those scars. He had nothing to fear from the likes of Basim.

He held up his hands in feigned surrender, and told him too sweetly, "Oh, my friend, you have me all wrong. You see, I am only_ jealous_ of your sister. My sisters would not have screwed me out of prison even if the warden was Rick O'Connell!"

Basim slapped him across the face so fast, Beni didn't even have the chance to flinch out of the way. He took the full, cracking force of the hit there on his cheek, and his head jerked to the side. He spat a stream of curses at the floor and rubbed the side of his tingling face gingerly, glaring up at Basim with angry, wounded eyes.

"What the_ hell,_ Basim?!"

"I told you to stop talking about my sister! Stop talking about her!"

"Um, I think we should all just calm down," Minnie's shaking voice put in, but she was too quiet for anyone to pay much attention to her.

"I will talk about your sister all I want. I know how much of a whore she is."

_"Stop talking about her!"_ Basim raised his hand, and Beni instinctively covered his face. Basim shook his head, glaring at him with narrowed eyes. "You little coward." He spat at Beni's feet, and turned to Izzy. "Let's go."

Minnie gaped at him. "Excuse me, but did you just_ spit_ on my floor?"

Basim ignored her and gave Izzy a nudge. With a sigh, Izzy pulled himself out of his chair, his knees popping in protest.

"You two will not last through one job without me," Beni told them as they trudged across the room.

Izzy scoffed, giving him a look of bored incredulousness. "You think you're frightful smart, but you ain't. There's a reason you're at the bottom of the barrel with the lot of us."

Beni sat up in his seat, pointing back at him. "You are lower than me, you stupid Negro! Good luck talking your way out of trouble with that one language you can barely use!"

Izzy turned and let out an agonized groan, "Oh, bloody hell, it's always right to the languages with you! Nobody cares about your goddamn languages!"

"All you can speak is English!" Beni retorted. "I speak more languages than Basim's whore sister has johns!"

Basim whirled around in the doorway, ready to stalk across the room and hit him again, but Izzy caught him by the shoulder.

"Don't waste the effort," Izzy told him, glancing back at Beni again. "We don't need you and we never did. I ain't doin' another job with you again."

Beni scoffed. "Like I've never heard that before."

Izzy pointed at him emphatically and gave him a serious glare. _"Never_ again."

Beni rolled his eyes and Izzy shoved Basim out into the hallway ahead of him, slamming the door shut as he made his way out. Beni breathed a disgruntled sigh and started to settle back on the couch, but Minnie's nervous gaze made him pause. He turned and looked at her, having a pretty good idea of what she was about to say to him:

"I think you should leave, too."

_"Minerva,"_ he whined.

She winced under the nerve-grating sound of the name she already didn't like. She gave him a look, and his eyes widened desperately.

"I mean Minnie! Minnie,_ please_ don't make me go back out into the _terrible heat!_ Did you see how hard he hit me? My face is_ aching..."_

But she only sighed and got up off of the couch, taking hold of his arm and attempting to drag him to his feet.

"I'm sorry, Beni," she said, "But Rick is going to be home any minute, and I really have to talk to him about something. It's important."

Beni eyed her suspiciously, as if trying to decipher whether she was telling him a lie or really did have an important matter to discuss with O'Connell. She stared at him for a moment, with his sad, pathetic face and wide eyes and his whole perpetual state of unwantedness, and her expression softened. She let go of his arm with a sigh and took a seat in the chair Izzy had vacated across the room.

"Alright, fine. But you have to leave as soon as he gets here. Okay?"

Beni nodded his head and closed his eyes, lulled into a light doze by the constant whir of the fan.


	6. Alone

_Author's Note: Just...can't...quit..._

_Disclaimer: The characters of _The Mummy_ are the property of Universal Studios__. _

* * *

**1925**

* * *

**Alone**

_November 9, 1925_

Basim had said he was on his way to visit his nephew, but he decided to go to a bar with Izzy instead. When he was a Med-Jai, he never drank, and his sister still certainly condemned the habit. But Basim had found a kind of comfort in the bottle, and he liked drinking with his new, non-Muslim friends. He liked the spicy burn of whiskey and the fruity sleepiness of wine. He especially enjoyed dark beer, and the Guinness Stout Izzy had introduced to him a few weeks ago was a new favorite he was intent on enjoying that very afternoon. Beni had taught him that vodka doesn't stink on your breath, but Basim decided that must be because vodka had no flavor at all. He would have a beer and just deal with Rashida's scolding later.

They were on their way to a bar just down the street from the apartment Basim and Rashida lived in, and Basim was so eager to drown away his aggravation with Beni that he didn't even notice the foreboding figure several yards behind him, dressed in a long black robe. Had he glanced over his shoulder and noticed, he might have darted into the nearest alleyway with no explanation for Izzy.

Had the man behind him gotten a good look at his face, he might have had half a mind to chase him down.

But the man wasn't interested in Basim, not directly. He hadn't come to Cairo, to this part of town, for a man whose sins were already punished. He hadn't asked Terrence Bey to seek out the apartment address where Basim was residing on account of _him_.

_Are you certain it is her?_

_Quite certain._

_Does she live alone?_

_Her brother lives with her. When he's not in prison, I mean._

_Has he been in prison frequently? Basim?_

More than frequently. Certainly, Basim was far from the only criminal in Cairo with scars on his face. But his had the peculiar characteristic of marking his face all around his eyes, and that made him both memorable and easy to identify. Dr. Bey's research heavily indicated that Rashida spent most of her time at the apartment alone, and the man who sought her hoped he'd find her that way today.

He took the stairs leading up to the third floor two at a time; alone in the narrow and dark stairwell, he didn't bother to hide his anticipation. But his pace slowed to a purposeful stride as he walked down the hallway to the fifth door, sidestepping two women gossiping together in Arabic as their children rolled a ball between them on the floor. He could feel them watching him with curiosity and suspicion; their eyes hardened in judgment as he came to a stop in front of the fifth door and knocked. He glanced back at them, right in their eyes, and they quickly looked away, pretending to return to their previous conversation.

"Ardeth."

He heard his name on her lips, so quiet and breathless, like he'd come back from the dead, and he quickly turned to the doorway. She'd cracked the door open just enough to see who it was, but she opened it completely now, and there she was.

There she was.

She looked tired, like he might have just woken her from a nap. Her round, dark eyes stared up at him with a kind of bleary incredulousness, as if she couldn't be certain she was even awake or not. Surely she _must_ have been asleep, because her long, dark hair was uncovered, falling all around her face in thick waves. She bit her lip and took a small step back, probably hoping that the women down the hall wouldn't see her answering the door without a hijab.

"Would you like to come in?" she asked weakly.

He nodded his head, and despite the ache in his body just to be near her again, he told her, "You can prepare yourself first, though."

She gave him a grateful smile and closed the door. In a moment that was both brief and agonizingly long, she opened the door again, this time with her hair properly covered in a scarf. She let him in, and they both pretended to ignore the suspicious looks from the women down the hall.

Rashida closed the door and looked up at him seriously. "What are you doing here?"

He stared at her, and let out a longing sigh, his eyes so soft and woeful that they must have caused her pain just to look into. He saw the tears well in her eyes, and without a thought, he closed the space between them and wrapped her in his arms. He kissed her trembling lips and felt her body relax against him, aching to open up to him like a flower, and he thought..._oh,_ he thought how wonderful it would be to take her. To have her here and now, when no one would ever know...

She ended their kiss and gently stepped out of his embrace, staring at her feet sheepishly.

"Rashida," he said, reaching a hand to touch her face. She blinked hard and looked up at him, and he thought he saw something like guilt in her lovely face.

She forced a smile, but her doe eyes betrayed her. "It is good to see you," she said cautiously, and winced a bit when she added, "But why are you here?"

Ardeth let his hand fall away from her face and sighed. "I had to find you. I could not bear it."

Rashida swallowed hard and nodded her head. "I've missed you so."

He felt a strange and heady mix of hope and pain; relieved that her heart hadn't moved on to another, but sorry, _so sorry_, for the sadness she'd suffered.

"Rashida," he said desperately. "Come back to me. Come back to the tribe."

She swallowed hard; he watched hope rise and fall in her eyes. "Oh, Ardeth...I can't..."

"Please. You are the only woman I want."

Rashida gasped back a breath and blinked hard. She reached her hands up to her eyes in a desperate attempt to keep her tears from smudging her kohl-rimmed lashes. He watched her helplessly; more than anything, he wanted to take her in his arms again and assure her that she could come back to the tribe. That she was welcome and that no one would hold her brother's sins against her, not while there was a breath in his body. But something about the way she stood there so stiffly - something about the way she kept glancing back towards the door to what was certainly her bedroom - made him uncertain. So he stood there, shifting his weight, flexing his hands, and wishing she was in his arms.

His brow furrowed, and he followed her eyes to the bedroom door curiously. He hated the way that suspicion tightened within him, and before she could stop him - or he could stop himself - he strode across the room to the bedroom door and threw it open.

"Don't - !" she cried.

In that brief moment it took for him to reach the door, he imagined some burly, handsome man - probably an Englishman - sprawled in her bed, smoking a cigarette like the satisfied imperialist he was, smug from the victory of having claimed Ardeth's beloved Rashida in his place. The image flashed quick but it burned, and his whole body smoked with jealousy until he burst into the room and saw...

And saw...

No man. At least not a grown one. There in the center of the bed, sprawled out on top of the sheet on his little back with his arms stretched above his head, was a chubby baby. Ardeth watched his tiny chest rise and fall in long, sleeping breaths, and the jealous rage within him melted away in the quiet and close heat of the afternoon. He blinked and rubbed his chin thoughtfully, and turned to look at Rashida in confusion.

She met his eyes, and then reached past him and closed the door to the bedroom again. They crept quietly away from the door, and all the while Ardeth couldn't take his eyes off of her, even though his words were utterly failing him. She looked up at him sheepishly, her mouth pressed in a thin line.

"Is he yours?" Ardeth asked at last, barely above a whisper.

Rashida closed her eyes and nodded.

"Have you married?" His voice was wrung tight with anxious disappointment.

She didn't open her eyes. She shook her head.

Ardeth blinked. He couldn't believe it. How could Rashida, his beautiful, virtuous bride-to-be, have a child out of wedlock? The woman he knew before would have never fallen to such temptation - would have never given herself up for a man until the time was proper and holy. And she certainly wouldn't have given herself to someone other than him. She loved him. He'd always believed that she loved him.

"Who is his father?" he asked in a voice that was harsher than he meant it to be. She flinched, and he reached over and took her hand. She glanced up at him, and seemed relieved by his soft eyes. He asked again, gentler, "Who is his father?"

Her eyes glazed over with tears and she shook her head, unable to get a word past her trembling lips. She pressed them together and fought down a sob, squeezing her eyes shut. All she could do was shake her head; she just kept shaking her head, and he waited.

Ardeth gave her hand a squeeze, and she took a deep breath. She said to her feet:

"I can't tell you."

His brow furrowed in confusion. "Why not?"

She glanced up at him, suddenly not so desperate and sad anymore. Suddenly her face was marked by a distinct determination, as if she could will herself into standing strong. Perhaps she could.

"I can't tell you," she said again emphatically.

Ardeth watched her with tender, forgiving eyes. "Please tell me, Rashida. Tell me how you came to have a son."

Rashida raised her eyebrows incredulously. "Ardeth," she told him, "it doesn't matter. I have a son now, and I'm not married, and he's not yours. Nothing can be done."

"Rashida..."

She stared up at him, hard and decided. "Nothing can be done."

He stared back at her, imploring her silently to tell him. Just tell him. His whole body was tense with curiosity and dread, and he just wanted to know...

_"Please,"_ he whispered.

The determination in her eyes softened, and she offered him a sad smile. Carefully, she pulled her hand out of his grasp.

"If I thought it could fix anything, I would tell you," she said. "But it won't. And if I tell you, you will only feel shame for ever loving me at all."

Ardeth shook his head. "I would never be ashamed of you."

She glanced away from him and sighed. "My brother has been banished from the tribe. And even if he hadn't ruined our entire family's reputation, I have thoroughly ruined mine." Her eyes found his again, round and sorrowful. "My place is here now. How I wish it was still with you."

Ardeth took a step closer to her, so that he could feel her breath on his face and her chest would touch his when she breathed. He was so close to her, and his whole body was tight with longing and perseverance. She was_ his_. She was his because he loved her and he wanted her to be his wife, and he wouldn't let anything pull her away from him again.

Couldn't she see that she was_ his?_ That he still wanted her more desperately than anything, even with her bastard son?

Couldn't she see it?

Those words ached on his lips, but he kissed her with them instead. He didn't say anything. He only held her close and kissed her, and she kissed him back. She _knew._ She must be able to see it, now. They belonged together and nothing would change that...

"You need to leave now," she whispered when their lips parted. He stared down at her in confusion, but her eyes were very certain and grave.

Ardeth swallowed hard and took a step back. He glanced between her and the bedroom door a few times before his eyes finally landed on hers.

"Do you love him?" he asked, even though he knew it was probably too bold.

She frowned. "Of course I love him."

"Not your son," Ardeth said. "His father. Do you love the man who is his father?"

Rashida blinked, and he watched all of the emotion and color leave her face. She stared up at him with dull, lifeless eyes, and told him in a voice that was numb:

"His father is the most despicable man on earth."


	7. Control

_Disclaimer: The characters of _The Mummy_ are the property of Universal Studios__. _

* * *

**1925**

* * *

**Control**

_November 9, 1925_

The most despicable man on earth was currently situated behind his desk, leaning back in a chair that creaked loudly in protest under the thickness of his weight. He was in a close, stuffy room with only one window that looked out into the prison courtyard, but he wasn't paying any attention to the dismal world beyond his cramped little office. He was scanning files with the pointer finger of one hand with half-hearted interest while swatting at flies with the other, barely bothering to take notice of the bulky American seated across from him with handcuffed wrists.

"Mr. O'Connell, is it, then?"

The American bit back a scoff and retorted, "Yep."

"Ah. It says here you were in the French Foreign legion for three years?"

"Twenty to twenty-three."

His brow furrowed suspiciously. "What were you in the Legion for?"

O'Connell offered him a sarcastic smile. "Voluntary."

He rose his eyebrows and leaned back in his seat, folding his hands on his belt. "Voluntary? Why?"

O'Connell shrugged his broad shoulders. "I don't know. Adventure, I guess. A good time."

He chuckled darkly, studying the American in amusement with his beady eyes. "And did you find a good time in the Legion?"

"Not really."

He let out a sigh. "I am acquainted with another Legionnaire. Very well acquainted. He is in my prison all the time. But you I do not know."

O'Connell snorted and glanced up at the broken ceiling fan. "Well. It's a pleasure."

He must have felt the warden's dark gaze, but he turned back and looked him in the eye. "You find yourself funny, eh, O'Connell?"

The prisoner shrugged.

He smirked. "Well, Mr. O'Connell, I think you will find that a smart mouth does not get you very far in here. The British may control Cairo, but I control Cairo Prison, and trust me, I do things the old-fashioned way."

O'Connell raised his eyebrows, not appearing particularly impressed. "Meaning what?"

A dark, leering grin found its way across his rat-like face, and the warden eyed him with something like greed. "Meaning...Here you are, a rich American fellow, I'm sure. And you have got yourself into a bit of trouble in a bar brawl - a regular situation for a man such as yourself. And now you are here at Cairo Prison, where the work is hard, and the sentences are...well, fickle. You may stay here indefinitely. Or, you may get out today."

He gave O'Connell an implicative glance, and the American leaned back in his seat.

"And how would I do that?"

The warden gave him an easy shrug. "For you? My fine, upstanding citizen who was merely a victim of too much liquor too early in the day?" He scratched his chin in a split second of contemplation. "Three hundred pounds."

O'Connell's eyes widened and his mouth gaped; he stared at the warden in shock for several seconds on end. "Three hundred pounds?"

"I think most would admit it is a reasonable price."

O'Connell scoffed. "I don't have that kind of money."

The warden's mouth jerked distastefully. "Well. Then it looks like you will not be returning home to your wife tonight, Mr. O'Connell."

"I'm not married."

A strange look passed over the warden's face, a glint of something like disappointment, perhaps. He said in a strained, unreadable tone, "What a pity."

They sat there in silence, in the close and insufferable heat, sweat dripping down the sides of their faces. The warden shuffled a few papers around and found a half-smoked cigar in one of the drawers of his desk. He lit it up and took a drag, breathing out a long, smoky sigh, and then signed something with an air of finality. He glanced up at O'Connell and told him:

"Well. Enjoy your next two weeks in Cairo Prison, Mr. O'Connell."

The American snorted and threw him a sarcastic, lopsided smile. "Yeah. I'm sure it'll be a real treat."

The warden said something in Arabic to the guards standing at the door, and they crossed over to O'Connell quickly, grabbing him by his shoulders and the collar of his shirt, and yanking him to his feet. He stumbled along between them and was pushed down the hall, out of the warden's sight. He leaned back in his chair and chewed on the end of his cigar absentmindedly, the thought of taking an afternoon nap drifting through his mind. He was just starting to let his eyelids droop when someone knocked on the door of his office and peeked in without any further prompting.

He shot the guard a glare. "What now?"

"Someone to see - "

Before he could even complete his sentence, a tall, cool figure breezed past him and strode into the office, her black dress swirling around her legs like a pool of water. She dismissed the guard with a look and walked straight up to the warden's desk, placing both hands on its warped and vaguely gummy surface and leaning over him dangerously.

Her lovely face was set in a cold and frozen smile, but her eyes glinted with black impatience.

"Gad," she said.

He cleared his throat awkwardly, attempting to maintain some air of control as he shifted in his seat. "Meela! What a pleasant surprise!"

Her lips pulled in a tight smirk. "It should not be a surprise, Gad. Did you forget it was Wednesday?"

"Of course not!" he said in a voice that was too high-pitched to be convincing.

"Do you have it?"

The warden grinned innocently, his hands hovering over a particular drawer anxiously. "Well, um...in a manner, yes."

Meela quirked a black eyebrow. "Then you mean 'no'."

Gad gulped. Without another word in his own defense, he jerked open the top drawer of his desk and removed a wrinkled wad of bills. "I have the principle - "

"And the interest?"

He winced a shrug. "I have come into hard times - it is a dry week - "

Meela grasped the money in one hand, and pointed at him with one of the slender fingers of her other hand. "We have an agreement, Mr. Hassan."

"Y-yes, I know, but - "

Her hand shot across the table and grasped him about the neck. Her long, sharp nails dug deep into his pudgy throat, and her fingers flexed against his flesh threateningly.

"You will pay me the interest by the end of the week."

Gad swallowed hard, barely managing the motion beneath her tight hold. "I will call in a few debts - "

"I do not care if you chop off your right arm and sell it. You will pay me the interest."

She released his neck just as suddenly, and swept away, leaving the dismal little room like a black ghost that might have never deigned to enter such a place at all. Gad glared at the door she had just closed behind her, rubbing his throat gingerly. He had told O'Connell wrong. The British did not control Cairo; Meela Nais did.

With a groan, he started wracking his mind for people he could call in on to pay him. He could probably lower the price on O'Connell's head; whatever he had at his disposal would do. Even a mere fifty pounds would help...

Who else?

Perhaps because O'Connell was a Legionnaire, he immediately thought of Beni Gabor. Yes, he could certainly get Beni in here on something or other. The man could not go more than a few waking hours without picking a pocket. This time of year Beni was always leading tourists out into the desert, too. Not only would his pockets be lined with advance payments, he'd also be so desperate to make his next trip that he'd scrounge up any amount of money in no time.

He'd call in Beni. And perhaps tonight a rich Englishman or a boisterous American tourist would get dragged in for public intoxication or disrupting the peace. Such people would pay any amount of money to avoid staying even one night in a third world prison.

Perhaps he would luck out.


	8. Problem

_Disclaimer: The characters of _The Mummy_ are the property of Universal Studios__. _

* * *

**1925**

* * *

**Problem**

_November 9, 1925_

As luck would have it, three boisterous American tourists had just arrived at the King's Casbah, a bar that didn't celebrate any particular notoriety. But it served good whiskey that usually wasn't watered down, and that was really all the more these particular Americans - hardly the uppity sort - wanted from a bar. The three of them waltzed in to their new beloved location and found an empty table somewhere near the bar.

"Burns, go get a round 'a bourbon."

Burns was always the one sent to do tasks like getting a round of bourbon. He put up with his friends because he'd always put up with them, for as long as he could remember. Since kindergarten or before. And he assumed compliance largely because that seemed to be his lot in life. He wasn't a ninny by any means, but he was cursed with being more mild-mannered than Henderson and less stubborn than Daniels, and so he got the bourbon.

He'd actually gotten pretty good at carrying three old-fashioned glasses at once.

Occasionally, when they were teenagers, he'd try to stand up to them, but it never ended well. They never took him seriously, and usually his attempts were met with a fit of laughter. _He looks so cute when he's riled!_ they'd chuckle, and go back to their business. But one time Burns _had_ decked Henderson, right on the jaw. It wasn't over anything in particular. Just some hot Texas night when everyone was already miserable, and Henderson was being a bit too much of an ass. So Burns clocked him, and he hit the floor with a thud, and he didn't get up right away. After that Henderson didn't rile him quite as much, and Burns went back to fetching the bourbon.

He'd never hit Daniels and he likely never would, because in all the time he'd known the man, he'd never once seen him stay on the ground when he was knocked down. But he put up with Daniels even when he was at the pinnacle of his jackassery, if only because there situated smugly in the back of his mind was the memory of the time he'd had Daniels' sister in the bed of Daniels' own pick-up. It was a fine memory and the most brilliant of silent comebacks, as far as Burns was concerned. _Sure, Dave, I'll get your bourbon. I already had your kid sister._

She'd grown out of being a kid a while ago. At least to everyone but Dave.

Burns set the glasses down in front of his friends and took his seat again. No sooner had he settled down than Henderson let out a long whistle and jabbed both men with his elbows.

"See that lil' number over there?"

They did. There was no missing her; she leaned against the dingy bar looking entirely out of place, a sparkling beacon of fashion and wealth in the midst of the dirty hubbub.

"You think she's here alone?" Henderson asked.

Daniels shook his head and returned his attention to his drink. "Nah, pretty thing like that. She wouldn't be in this neighborhood on her lonesome."

Henderson watched her with growing curiosity, eyeing up the crowd of men in search of some appropriately-dressed match. After a while, he shook his head.

"I don't think she's with nobody."

Daniels let out a long sigh and glanced up at her again. His brow furrowed in interest, and a spark of recognition lit his eyes. "Hey, I seen her not that long ago."

"Really?" Burns asked, a tad incredulous.

He nodded his head. "She was at that restaurant we had lunch at. Had a big, dark red Studebaker."

Henderson sighed, still eyeing the girl. "Shouldn't be in this part 'a town on her lonesome."

"She probably ain't."

"I don't see nobody."

The bartender set a martini in front of her, and she picked it up delicately, taking a long slow sip from the awkward glass. Henderson let out a wistful sigh.

"I'm gonna invite her over."

Daniels raised his eyebrows. "She's probably with somebody."

Henderson shrugged. "Then the worst she can say is no."

"I thought we was havin' a drink, not talkin' up some flapper."

Henderson stared at his friend in curious disbelief, barely able to hold back the amused chuckles in his throat. "What's the matter with you, Daniels? You suddenly don't like havin' a pretty young thing at your table with you?"

Daniels scoffed, glaring back at Henderson defensively. "Maybe I just don't wanna listen to you tryin' 'a Casanova your way into that gal's drawers."

Henderson snorted and turned his attention to Burns. "Well let's ask Bernard here. What do you think? You want the pretty lady to come over and drink with us, or you wanna spend the evenin' with a couple men?"

Burns chuckled and shrugged his shoulders, giving Daniels a sheepish look when he said, "Well it can't hurt to invite her..."

Henderson grinned. "Worst she can say is no."

Daniels rolled his eyes and took a gulp from his glass as Henderson strode up to the bar. He watched his friend with something like a scowl on his face, and Burns tried not to laugh at him.

"What's gotten into you? Normally you'd be the one draggin' that gal over here."

Daniels shrugged his shoulders stiffly and took another drink. "Ain't my type."

Burns raised his eyebrows. "Really? _That_ ain't your type?"

Daniels sniffed, and shrugged again. He seemed agitated. "I like a gal's got a shape to her."

"Well, who doesn't? But in them flapper dresses there ain't no tellin' what shape she's got underneath."

Daniels stared at him in half-lidded incredulousness. "Ah, hell, Bernard, you can tell. Gal's a beanpole."

Burns shrugged, eyeing up his friend curiously. He took a sip from his glass and said, "I don't know. Got a great set a legs. And her face is pretty, too."

Daniels let out an ambivalent snort, and Burns sighed.

"Guess I didn't know you'd gotten so picky all the sudden."

Daniels turned to retort something, but he was stopped by Henderson's sudden reappearance at the table, the girl in question at his side.

Henderson was grinning like an idiot.

"Fellas, this here's Viola Chamberlain. Honey, these're my buddies, Dave Daniels and Bernard Burns."

"Nice to meet you," Viola said with a faint smile, taking the chair Henderson pulled out for her.

"Viola's from up Boston-ways."

Burns raised his eyebrows. "No kiddin'?"

"What brings a gal like you all the way from Boston?" Henderson asked.

She smiled politely. "I have family here. They've all got the Egypt bug."

"You out on this side 'a town all on your own?" Dave asked with a frown, his voice dark and judgmental.

Viola's brow knit up defensively for a moment; she told him with a cool kind of evenness, "I have a driver waiting in my car. He comes in to check on me every half hour."

"Wouldn't it just be easier to go to a bar where other folks like you drink?" Daniels demanded.

She stared back at him for a moment while his friends attempt to chide him for being rude, but she spoke for herself. "It really isn't any business of yours where I go for a drink."

Daniels snorted and took a sip of bourbon. "I s'pose there's no arguin' with a fool-headed woman."

Viola stiffened, her pretty features taking on a kind of regal offensiveness that (had they known them) they would have immediately ascribed to the Chamberlain side of her family.

"Did I do something to offend you?" she asked blankly.

He grunted and shrugged his shoulders. "Nope."

"Why don't you let the little lady alone, huh, Dave?" Henderson said pointedly, scooting his chair closer to Viola. "Now, honey, don't pay him any mind. He's just all bent out 'a shape 'cause we been in this godforsaken country a month and ain't found a speck 'a treasure."

Viola stared hard at Daniels a moment longer before turning her attention to Henderson. Her mouth was smiling brightly but her eyes still held fast to their aristocratic expression. She let out a light, forced laugh.

"Off to find the glorious riches of Hamunaptra, I assume?"

"Where?" Henderson asked.

Viola stared at him, her eyes going wide when she realized he was perfectly serious. She stifled a chuckle and said, "Goodness, I thought everyone knew about Hamunaptra."

"Well we don't," Daniels muttered.

She shot him a look and turned her attention back to Henderson. "Why, it's only the most marvelous treasure trove of them all!"

Henderson leaned forward in interest, and Burns scooted a little closer; even Daniels had to sit up a little bit and give her an ear. She smiled and told them all about Hamunaptra and the remarkable wealth it allegedly held, and how it was protected by the curse of a mummy and no one could find it.

"Sounds like the place for us," Henderson said.

Burns nodded his head. "Is it really out there?"

Viola laughed. "No, I don't think so."

Henderson let out a disappointed sigh.

"Lots of people claim they've been there, but you'll notice none of them are rolling in gold," she said, taking a sip from her drink.

Burns shrugged. "I reckon some place like that's just too good to be true."

Viola nodded her head. "It's like Mr. Carter's discovery - the only reason they found it at all was because King Tutankhamen was so unimportant no one had thought to rob his tomb ages ago."

The four of them fell into an odd if not somewhat comfortable silence, sipping their drinks and glancing about the busy bar. After a moment, Daniels let out a long, growling sigh. "Well, shit. There it is."

Viola offered him a condoling smile that he didn't return. "If you gentlemen ever do set out for a_ real_ location, you should look up my uncle. He's very good."

Daniels frowned. "What's he do?"

"He's an Egyptologist."

"Hell's the use in draggin' an Egyptologist out with us? Just another fella to have to split the loot with."

A smug little smile tugged at the corner of her lips. "Well, you know. He can read the hieroglyphics - tell you if you're about to walk into the treasure room or a booby trap. Things of that nature. He's not a bad fellow to have around."

Burns nodded his head. "I like the sound 'a bringin' someone like that with us."

Henderson bobbled his head in agreement, nudging Daniels. Dave shot him a look and begrudgingly agreed, pretending to focus on his drink again.

"Christ, Dave, what's your damn problem tonight?"

Daniels cleared his throat and glared at him defensively. "Nothin'. I ain't got a problem. I'm gonna take a piss."

"Ever the polite one, you," Burns said as his friend lumbered to his feet. Daniels smacked him lightly upside his head and strode off in search of the restroom. Viola watched him go with a thoughtful frown on her face, and perhaps thanks to the martini, she declared:

"Excuse me. I think I'll find the restroom, as well."

Henderson shrugged and Burns told her, "Be careful," which earned him a strange look from Viola just before she walked off after Daniels. Henderson turned and looked at him incredulously.

"'Be careful'?"

"Well, I don't know, Gabe! Jeeze."

Henderson chuckled, glancing back towards the bar contemplatively. "Well, I probably shouldn't, but I'm gonna get me another bourbon."

Burns nodded his head and leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes for a brief moment. Maybe a few minutes. He blinked them open and decided he'd better finish his bourbon and be done for the evening, so he picked up his glass and brought it to his lips. He was about to swallow the last dregs of it, but he never got the chance. Chaos broke in two different directions before his very eyes, and he didn't know which way he ought to turn. But he put his glass down.

He didn't see the determined way Viola stalked after Dave only a few minutes before and grab him by his elbow jerking him to a stop. He whirled around and glared into her eyes.

"What the hell's the matter with you?" he demanded.

"Why are you being so rude to me?" she retorted. "What have I done to you?"

Dave's mouth gaped wordlessly for a few frustrated moments before he told her loudly, "Well I just don't like you, okay? Think everybody's gotta like you; shit, honey. Life ain't gonna be no cake walk for you. Don't matter how pretty you are."

Viola stared at him in puzzlement, and then slowly, that blue-blooded smugness found its way into every line of her face, and especially into her dark eyes. She stared at him with that cold, intolerable entitlement, knowing - just_ knowing_ as she stared at him how badly he wanted her. And how badly he was resisting it, for whatever ridiculous or non-ridiculous reason. She saw how he hated wanting her. She saw it in the loathesome way he was glaring back at her, just before he shoved her against the wall and kissed her hard.

Burns saw them in the shadows there and gulped, but he barely had a moment to register that it was even really Dave and Viola there in the hallway. He heard the sound of smashing glass from over by the bar, and perhaps instinctively, his stomach dropped. He turned and saw Henderson standing there with his fists raised before a slight Arab man, who was holding up his hands in surrender. Even from this distance in the smoky bar, Bernard could tell there was something not quite right about the Arab's face.

"Shit," he muttered.

A black man twitched nervously nearby, but Burns only noticed him in passing.

Bernard took a breath and pulled himself out of his chair. He called for Dave over his shoulder, catching a glimpse of the guilty way he shoved Viola away from him and strode quickly out into the action at the bar.

"Lemme tell you somethin', you sand-eatin' som'bitch! You keep your goddamn hands out 'a my pockets or I'll cut 'em off!"

Burns cast a grim glance at Daniels, who was already going for his pistol. With a sigh, he glanced over his shoulder to see if Viola was still there lurking in the hallway.

She was gone.


	9. Influence

_Disclaimer: The characters of _The Mummy_ are the property of Universal Studios__. _

* * *

**1925**

* * *

**Influence**

_November 9, 1925_

Viola felt a strange emotion surging through her whole body like a bout of electricity; she could barely catch her breath as she slipped out of the bar and darted into the night, rushing over to her Studebaker in heels that clicked beneath her like the off-kilter trepidation of her heart. She reached her car door before her driver could even spot her in the darkness, and let herself in before he had a chance to get the door for her. She slammed it behind her and gasped back a breath, her whole body trembling with something...with something...

"Is everything quite alright, Miss Chamberlain?"

She forced a breezy smile and nodded her head.

Everything _was_ alright.

That was just it. Her body and mind and her entire state of being weren't pulsing from any kind of anxiety or fear or even guilt at what she'd done, kissing a man she'd never met before in a dark hallway. Instead she felt almost powerful, a sensation it had never before occurred to her to feel. She remembered the look in Dave Daniels' eyes just before he kissed her, the despised longing for her lips and her body and her touch. She remembered it and she could picture it, vivid and burning before her very eyes.

She didn't want Mr. Daniels. Not necessarily, anyway. At the time she really had just been so irritated and baffled by his behavior that she (with the aid of a few martinis) was willing to hunt him down and demand some kind of explanation. She'd been brought up her whole life to expect a certain kind of treatment; but even if she hadn't, common politeness was by no means too much to ask from another person.

It hadn't once occurred to her that he was being such a brute in a desperate attempt not to flirt with her. Perhaps he had a wife or a fiancée or some other darling woman in his life. He had someone he didn't want to betray, and it was all he could think to do. He was desperate and helpless like a caged animal, pacing back and forth in a cramped space with blood on its mind. And in the darkness, in the privacy of an empty hallway, she'd snatched away his bristling guard with no trouble at all. She had no idea she could do such a thing to another person.

It was exhilarating.

All this time she'd been bemoaning the loss of Jonathan Carnahan. She'd told him in so many words that _he_ was the one at loss, but that didn't change the fact that she didn't have an engagement ring. She really had been very fond of him, and she'd thought between his age and their shared social statuses, it was only a matter of time before he proposed. She'd done anything he ever wanted, because she really did like him. She told herself she loved him, but she wasn't sure she knew how to love someone yet. Regardless, she was willing and modern and she was so very convinced he'd make her his wife sooner or later. But that wasn't what he did at all. Instead he grew bored of her, and she grasped desperately at the dream of marrying him. She grasped at it for weeks, until it became clear there was nothing to hold on to.

She'd felt so very powerless.

_Why doesn't he want me?_ she'd lamented. _Will anyone ever want me? Is there anything to want here at all?_ But tonight, with Mr. Daniels - with Mr. Henderson and Mr. Burns, too - she'd seen it. The truth of the matter that had evaded her while she'd occupied herself with visions of a Christmas wedding and cushion-cut diamonds. But she saw it now, and it delighted her. She wasn't powerless; she had just never known the proper way to use her influence.

Now she did.

And she suddenly realized she wasn't so interested in diamonds. At least not the ones that go on a woman's left hand, forever. She suddenly realized that a man as strong and sure of himself like Dave Daniels would go out of his way to avoid her because she was simply that irresistible. If she could do such a thing to a man like that, she could do it to anyone. She could have any man she pleased. And then_ they_ would be the ones dreaming about snagging_ her_ with diamonds - not the other way around. She was going to have anyone she wanted, and they weren't going to catch her. Not for a while, anyway.

She smiled to herself at the thought, leaning on the door of the car and gazing out the window thoughtfully. They were slowly making their way back into the more respectable side of town, and her Studebaker leapt in from pool of light to pool of light under the watching streetlamps. As they passed the Museum of Antiquities, her brow furrowed in curiosity to see what she thought was a familiar Model T. Of course, there was no telling one Model T from another, but this one had a telltale dent in the side like Dr. Bartos's. She couldn't help but wonder what he could possibly be doing there at this time of the night, but the thought passed from her mind like a dream, and she continued to think about her newfound power over the world.

Inside the Museum of Antiquities, Dr. Bartos sat at a desk he was borrowing from Dr. Terrence Bey, pouring over a book with delicate, yellow pages and flimsy binding. Those were his favorite kinds of books - once so loved but now forgotten - and he leafed through it gingerly, studying the words through his spectacles. He had assumed he was alone in the museum, as Terrence had left some time ago but welcomed him to stay so long as he pulled the door shut tight and made sure it locked behind him. But just down the hall he heard a sudden gasp in the silence, and sat up, curious and startled.

"Hello?" he called.

He heard a sheepish shuffle of feet, and then a tired young woman appeared in the doorway. She stared at him in perplexity with heavy eyes, and he offered her a smile.

"Good evening," he said.

She forced a nervous smile. "Hello..."

They watched each other a moment longer. "I am Dr. Emil Bartos. I am a friend of Dr. Bey's."

"Oh," she said, and pulled the glasses off of her nose to rub her eyes. "I didn't realize anyone was still here."

"Me either."

She gave him a thin smile. "I'm Dr. Bey's secretary, Evelyn Carnahan - "

"Carnahan, you say?" Dr. Bartos interrupted in surprise.

"Yes, and I fell asleep at - "

"Of the Nigel Carnahan fame, I presume?"

Evelyn smiled again, still nervous, shifting her weight where she stood. She swallowed and nodded her head. "Yes. He was my father."

Dr. Bartos nodded his head, gazing at her with his sympathetic gray eyes. "I am terribly sorry for your loss. He was a great archeologist."

"Thank you."

Her eyes kept darting to the stacks of books he had piled on the desk, and a little knowing smile played at the corner of his lips as he watched her stealing glances at the titles.

"Were you on your way out?" he asked.

But she wasn't quite listening to him. She stole across the room and stopped right in front of the desk, her hands hovering over one of the books longingly. His eyes lit happily, and he gestured for her to pick it up.

"Go on, then," he said. "I would not deny Nigel Carnahan's daughter a good book."

Evelyn bit back a smile and picked it up eagerly, flipping through the pages with a studious interest. He watched a frown settle between her eyes.

"But this is about Hamunaptra."

Dr. Bartos nodded. "Yes."

"I've never seen this book before. Is it from our library?"

Dr. Bartos's eyes twinkled, and he folded his hands on the desk, looking endearingly proud. "That is from_ my_ library." He chuckled quietly. "I think we both know Terrence would not entertain such nonsense in his."

Evelyn shook her head absentmindedly, her fingers tracing over the words on the page.

"I like entertaining nonsense, however," Dr. Bartos went on. "Nonsense has lead to the only interesting discoveries in the world."

She was so absorbed in the book that she could only give him a polite nod of her head, but he wasn't offended. He smiled to himself as he watched her, devouring the book like a fine meal. He leaned back in his seat and shook his head.

"You remind me of your mother."

Evelyn's head jerked up, and she stared at him in shock with her wide, glittering eyes. Her mouth hung open for a wordless moment before she whispered, "You knew my mother?"

Dr. Bartos nodded. "Only briefly. I met her one time, in a situation much like this, before she married your father. She had that same passionate look about her."

Evelyn stared back at him in surprise, an unnamed emotion welling in her eyes. All she could tell him was, "Thank you."

Dr. Bartos looked back at her for a moment longer before returning his attention to the book in front of him. "Have a seat and look at it. I am not going anywhere."

She nodded her head and rushed across the room to the nearest chair, her eyes never once leaving the page. For a while they sat there in perfect silence, reading their books and caught up in entirely different worlds, comfortable and alone even though they'd only just met. An hour might have passed before they were both startled back to their peculiar reality by the ringing of the telephone on Dr. Bey's desk.

"Oh, dear!" Evelyn exclaimed, jumping out of the chair. "It's probably my brother - I'm never this late getting home unless I've fallen asleep at my desk - "

She crossed the room hurriedly and picked up the phone, the words, "Jonathan, I'm fine - " halfway out of her mouth before the person on the other end even had a chance to speak. She stopped midway through her sentence and swallowed hard, her brow furrowed curiously. After a moment she held out the earpiece to Dr. Bartos.

"It's for you."

Dr. Bartos frowned. "Is it Terrence?"

Evelyn shook her head. "I don't know who it is."

With a shrug, he took the earpiece from her and pulled the receiver closer, listening intently to the urgent voice on the other line. After a while, he sighed and said, "I will be there shortly," and hung up the phone. He glanced up at Evelyn with an air of disappointment. "I'm afraid I must go. There has been a misunderstanding at the prison."

Evelyn's eyebrows rose, and she might have wanted to question him further, but she soon remembered it wasn't any of her business. He looked at her seriously.

"Would you like a ride home?"

She swallowed hard, glancing uncertainly back at his book, spread open where she had left it on the chair.

"I will rephrase," he said. "I _insist_ on taking you home. This is no time of night for a woman to be finding her own way back."

Evelyn pressed her lips together for a moment. "But what about your, um, situation at the prison?"

Dr. Bartos shrugged. "Eh, my guide will still be there when I arrive. That is what they do at prison, no? Keep people?"

She forced a little chuckled and nodded her head. "I suppose they do..." Her eyes wandered back to the book, and she let out a wistful sigh. Dr. Bartos smiled.

"Why don't you take it?"

She turned back to him in surprise, her eyes twinkling hopefully for a flashing second before she quickly shook her head. "Oh, I can't do that."

Dr. Bartos shrugged, crossing the room over to the chair and picking up the book. He held it out to her. "I insist."

Evelyn bit back a smile and took the book from his hand, staring down at the cover as if it was a priceless glint of jewelry. He watched her with something like affection in his eyes, and gestured to the doorway. She took a few steps towards it, and then turned and looked at him, a curious and hopeful look on her face.

"Do you really think it's out there? Hamunaptra?"

He chuckled in his throat and nodded his head, going back into the room to turn off the lamp on Dr. Bey's desk. She waited for him in the hallway, hanging back as he closed the door to Dr. Bey's office behind him. He glanced up at her with that same contented smile on his face, always on his face.

"My dear," he said, "I am a man of faith. I believe that God himself came down and was born a little baby, and died for the sins of all people, and rose again from the dead. If that is possible, then nothing is impossible. Not even Hamunaptra."

She smiled thoughtfully as she followed him out to his dented Model T, the book clutched tenderly in her arms. Neither of them saw the man all in black, lurking in the shadows, keeping a close watch. Neither of them saw his studious frown, perhaps a little baffled that the lights in the museum had not been on for the person he was expecting. So the man in the shadows crept quietly across the street, and knocked a tattooed fist against the door of Dr. Terrence Bey's home.


	10. Limits

_Disclaimer: The characters of _The Mummy_ are the property of Universal Studios__. _

* * *

**1925**

* * *

**Limits**

_November 9, 1925_

Dr. Bey had been expecting the knock on the door to be Dr. Bartos, since Emil was the sort of person to say good night and express his gratitude over borrowing the museum, if he happened to see a light on. But when he opened the door with his nightcap in hand, he met the dark, urgent eyes of Ardeth Bay, the oldest son of his closest friend. His brow furrowed in perplexity, and without a word, he stepped aside to let Ardeth in.

The young man was clearly agitated, and the way he stared at the floor as he strode in suggested he might even be distressed. Terrence frowned as he watched him, pacing about the floor like he was trapped.

"Is something the matter?" he asked, bringing his drink to his lips.

Ardeth's eyes jerked up to his, as if he'd forgotten entirely about him. Terrence sighed at the hopeless look on his face, gesturing into the parlor.

"Would you care to take a seat?"

Ardeth shook his head. "I can't sit."

Dr. Bey cleared his throat and slipped calmly back into his favorite velvet chair. "Well. I presume you won't mind if _I_ sit."

Ardeth waved his hand dismissively, continuing to pace back and forth like a hungry black panther in a menagerie.

Terrence took another drink from his cup and asked, "Would you like me to give you an ear, or did you just want to wear a path in the rug?"

Ardeth stopped all of the sudden, and whirled around to face him. "Did you know Rashida had a son?" he demanded.

Dr. Bey blinked, his eyebrows raising in genuine surprise. "No."

Ardeth shook his head in wonder, scratching his chin thoughtfully.

"How old?" Terrence asked.

Ardeth looked up at him and blinked. "I don't know." He stared at Dr. Bey with wide, helpless eyes, looking (perhaps for the first time in his life) like a scared child. For as long as Terrence had known him, he'd been a somber person - an old soul with old eyes - and he'd rarely known him to be so uncertain about anything, even as a boy.

"What should I do?" he asked quietly.

Dr. Bey let out a sigh and sat up a little in his chair. "I imagine you should let her and her husband live the life they've chosen for themselves."

"She is not married," Ardeth told him.

Terrence frowned. "She isn't?"

Ardeth shook his head. He looked boyish and naïve and desperate, gazing back at Dr. Bey, willing him to give him some direction or advice. They watched one another for a few minutes in the silence of Dr. Bey's parlor, and then a look like suspicion crept into Terrence's eyes. He stared hard at Ardeth a moment longer before asking him in an even tone:

"Is there any chance at all that the boy is yours?"

Ardeth stared back at him, dumbfounded. And then he blinked and shook his head vigorously, offense marking his handsome face. "Of course not!"

But Terrence only nodded. "Then you need to let her go."

"I can't."

Dr. Bey raised his eyebrows, but Ardeth's expression was hopelessly determined. He stared back at him without even blinking, his mouth set in a stubborn frown. Terrence sighed, and told him again gently:

"Ardeth, you must let her go. I'm sorry."

"I cannot do that," Ardeth said, more determined than ever.

Dr. Bey might have wanted to keep that impatient strain out of his voice, but it was late and he was having to lecture a young man on things he certainly already knew.

"Ardeth, the council is not going to allow you to marry a woman who has shamed herself with a bastard child."

He met his gaze with something like defiance. "They would if I claimed the boy as my own."

The corner of Terrence's mouth twitched. _"Is_ he your own?"

_"No."_

"You're quite sure?"

Ardeth glared at him. "Terrence, it is not possible."

Dr. Bey held up his hands in surrender. "Very well." He heaved a sigh and folded his hands in his lap. "But if you do that, he becomes your firstborn, and the heir to the Med-Jai caliphate. You will break a line of caliphs that dates back over three thousand years!"

Ardeth stared down at the floor and said nothing. Terrence eyed him gravely.

"You would do that, for this woman?"

Ardeth closed his eyes wearily and shook his head. "I love her."

Dr. Bey let out a sigh. He stared at the young man steadily, until he at last looked up and met his grim and sympathetic eyes. "Ardeth, you must let her go."

He saw Ardeth's jaw clench angrily. Terrence softened his voice, "After what her brother has done, the council might not approve of the marriage at all. If anyone ever found out that he was not really your son...it would destroy everything."

Ardeth heaved a deep breath, glaring down at his feet, his hands clenched into fists. Terrence shook his head pityingly.

"I wish I had happier advice to give."

Ardeth scoffed. There was nothing more Dr. Bey could say to him, and they both knew it. He lifted his cup to his lips and took a long gulp. He watched Ardeth standing there in his parlor, looking so peculiar in his black robes. No one would have ever guessed that Terrence himself could have worn them - could have taken on the tattoos and ridden in the desert as a warrior. But there were other places for him - better uses of his talents - and while he supposed he enjoyed certain Western comforts and conveniences, he often found himself an alien among his own people. He was certainly an alien next to Ardeth, the epitome of their tribe's ancient traditions.

Perhaps if Ardeth had taken up a life of secrecy like Terrence had, he could have freely married someone like Rashida...But the luxury of choice had never been available to Ardeth. He was the oldest son of the caliph, and there was only one course for him. There had always only been one course for him.

Dr. Bey could see him there, mulling these unpleasant realities about in his head and hating that course - hating the limits of his revered birthright - and he pitied him. Sometimes being born ordinary is the greatest blessing of all.

At last Ardeth looked up and breathed a sigh, an unreadable emotion in his dark eyes. "I have much to think over."

Terrence held back the urge to snort, because _surely_ Ardeth knew there was no other way. Rashida could never be his wife.

Ardeth gave him a little nod and strode across the room, towards the front door. Dr. Bey rose his eyebrows, too used to Ardeth's brevity to be offended.

"Out of curiosity," he called, perhaps against his better judgment. Ardeth froze and turned back to look at him. "Who _is_ the boy's father?"

Ardeth stared at him, something like a grimace on his face. "I do not know."

Terrence wasn't able to hold back a snort this time. "Well. Perhaps you might go to the trouble of finding out, if you're seriously entertaining the notion of making this man the new father of the Med-Jai."


	11. Graciously

_Disclaimer: The characters of _The Mummy_ are the property of Universal Studios__. _

* * *

**1925**

* * *

**Graciously**

_November 9, 1925_

The potential new father of the Med-Jai was just then scowling impatiently between the two Hungarians seated before him. Their shared nationality was easily the only similarity between the men; Beni's lank form was stooped in his chair, twitching uncomfortably against the handcuffs around his wrists. He was dirty and unkempt and might have stank if the room didn't already possess such an overpowering odor, and his clothes were ragged and mismatched. The man Gad had recently spoken with on the phone - Dr. Emil Bartos - was considerably shorter and had a squat build. He wore a smart tweed suit tailored especially for him, and his shoes gleamed in the electric lightbulb hanging overhead. His moustache was full and curled at the ends with wax; Beni's was little more than a shrimpy line grace his upper lip.

More noteworthy - at least to the warden, at the moment - was Dr. Bartos's voice, which was rich and calm against Beni's high-pitched whine. Gad only found this discrepancy more noteworthy right then because the two men were babbling at each other in a language he couldn't even begin to understand. He heaved a loud, obvious sigh and rubbed his forehead.

He had managed to track down Beni, though it had taken most of the afternoon. He swore that he'd spent all afternoon taking a nap and hadn't stolen a single thing all day, but it wouldn't be the first lie Beni Gabor had ever told him. So the warden had him brought in on something or another, and Beni had promised he could get Gad any amount of money he needed from this Dr. Bartos character. _But you must let me do the talking, barat'm. _So Gad let him do the talking, and this is where trusting Beni had gotten him: listening to a pair of Hungarians argue about Allah-only-knows while he tried not to lose his patience or fall asleep.

He was on the brink of both, strangely.

Suddenly Dr. Bartos's gaze jerked over to his in a disgusted scowl. Gad blinked and glared back at him, though he wasn't sure what he was glaring about. He turned his confused eyes to Beni angrily, but the pathetic little weasel only stared back at him, woeful and scared and overdramatic.

Gad's eyes narrowed._ "What did you just tell him?"_ he demanded in Arabic.

Beni exaggerated a crestfallen shrug. _"Only that I am a poor man, wrongfully accused, and that you have only brought me here in your wickedness in the hopes of bedding my beautiful, devoted wife..."_

Gad scoffed loudly. _"And he believes that nonsense?"_

Beni's expression was unmoved. He edged a helpless glance at Dr. Bartos. _"It would not be the first time you did it."_

The warden stared back at him with a flat expression. _"I meant about you having a beautiful, devoted wife."_

_"Go to hell, Gad."_

A mean, leering smirk darkened the warden's face. _"Have you forgotten, my friend? This is Cairo Prison. I _run_ hell."_

"Warden Hassan, I do not understand what you are saying, but I would appreciate it if you stopped berating this poor man," Dr. Bartos cut in. Gad had never been so relieved to hear English. "As to the sum you have requested - I will pay, but only under the condition that you will leave this man and his family alone."

Gad leaned back in his chair matter-of-factly. "I would not touch a hair on the head of this man's family."

Dr. Bartos gave him a hard eye for a moment longer before digging his wallet out of the pocket of his suit jacket. He leafed through several bills and held out an impressive stack. Gad snatched at them greedily, but Dr. Bartos did not immediately release them.

"Believe me, Warden Hassan, I have many important connections. If it ever comes to my attention that you force yourself on a woman in her own destitution, I will alert the appropriate parties. You will spend your time on the other side of the prison bars. Alright?"

The warden let out a bored sigh and nodded his head, shoving the bills into his desk drawer when Dr. Bartos at last released them. The Egyptologist turned to Beni expectantly, and gave a nod towards the door. He caught the eye of one of the prison guards and gestured to Beni's handcuffs. The guard glanced at Gad, and the warden told him to remove them in Arabic. Beni watched as the shackles were unlocked, looking as sorrowful and somber as a martyr, and thanked the man quietly when he pulled the handcuffs away.

Gad rolled his eyes, but Beni stayed as melodramatically serious as ever, following Dr. Bartos out the door in a fearful scurry. When they left the room, he straightened a little, feeling a kind of smug satisfaction as they walked past the row of waiting arrestees. He caught sight of two familiar faces and he couldn't help but smirk, looking them over with feigned sympathy. He caught Dr. Bartos's elbow and told him that he would find his own way home, and Emil reluctantly agreed, after Beni assured him that it was really no trouble.

Beni would have liked getting a ride back to his little tenement in Dr. Bartos's car, but this opportunity was much too good to pass up. He strode over to Izzy and Basim, leaning against the wall in the back of the line.

"Oh, my poor friends!" he exclaimed. "How have you ever found your way to this wretched place? And Basim! What happened to your face?"

Basim rolled his eyes - at least the one that he _could_ roll; the other was black and swollen shut.

"Yeah, yeah," Izzy muttered. "Fancy seein' you and the like. Why don't you move along your way?"

Beni's eyes widened. "Oh, but what sort of friend would I be if I did not come and speak with you in your hour of need?"

Izzy glared at him irritably. "You're a thief, not a priest, and you're only here to gloat. So get it out 'a your system and move along."

Beni tsked him, shaking his head in an aggravating display of wounded betrayal. "I have only come to offer my sincerest condolences." His eyes became suddenly hard and narrow, and his mouth twitched with a sneer. "I guess you will not be able to do that liquor store if you are stuck in here."

Izzy sniffed. "You don't know how long we're in here for. And anyways, we can always do it after."

Beni let out a long sigh, unable to hide the gleeful glint in his eyes any longer. "You are stuck here. And maybe I will find a partner and do it when I want."

Basim perked up all of the sudden, eyeing Izzy thoughtfully for a moment before flitting his working eye over to Beni. He motioned him a little closer, and whispered in Arabic, _"I'll do it with you Tuesday if you go and get Rashida for me."_

Beni leaned back on his heels, rubbing his chin in consideration for a moment. After a while, he looked into Basim's hopeful gaze and told him happily, _"No. You had your chance, you stupid bastard."_

_"Well at least tell Rashida I'm here,"_ he said, hardly above begging.

_"No. I have better things to do tonight."_

_"Like what?"_

_"Like not sleep on a prison cot,"_ Beni retorted cruelly.

Basim sighed, staring back at him desperately. He ran his tongue over his lips and glanced up the row, his shoulders slumping in weary defeat. He turned back to Beni again.

_"Please,"_ he said in one last effort. _"She worries...she'll come here eventually, anyway. I just don't want her to have to bring her son here."_

Beni glanced back towards the door to the warden's office, his mouth twitching with some unreadable emotion. His throat jerked with a swallow, and perhaps...perhaps because Dr. Bartos had so graciously paid his bail, or perhaps because he felt the faintest twinge of sorrow for Rashida...or, most likely just because it was an opportunity to go to her apartment and smugly declare where her brother had landed himself because she had insisted he not work with Beni, he nodded his head. Basim looked surprised, but he said, "Thank you."

And Beni shrugged, scurrying off down the hallway. His shoulder caught the passing form of another person, and he whirled around to glare at the stranger, but when he saw who it was, his expression changed immediately.

"Minnie?"

She stopped at the sound of her name, turning around to look at him in surprise. He eyed her curiously. "What are you doing here?"

Minnie glanced up the hall nervously and shrugged. "I guess Rick's in here."

Beni frowned, puzzled. He remembered that his afternoon nap at O'Connell's apartment had never been interrupted by his arrival; instead, after a couple hours Minnie woke him up and told him she had to run some errands. He never would have guessed that O'Connell hadn't come home because he'd been picked up by the police.

"For what?" he asked, a curious grin stretching his lips.

She shook her head. "I don't really know. But they said they would let him out for twenty-five dollars...So I brought twenty-five dollars."

Beni scoffed, his expression twitching between confusion and insult.

"I should probably go," she said. He nodded, and watched her stride purposefully towards the warden's door. He frowned when she stopped all of the sudden, and turned to speak with one of the arrestees. They were too far away for him to hear what they were saying, and as far as he could tell, he didn't recognize the man.

With a shrug, he turned and hurried out into the night.


	12. Uneasiness

_Disclaimer: The characters of _The Mummy_ are the property of Universal Studios__. _

* * *

**1925**

* * *

**Uneasiness**

_November 9, 1925_

"Dave, what are you doing here?" Minnie asked, hoping she didn't sound too demanding. She just couldn't believe she'd run into Dave _here_, of all places. She thought he was a fine, upstanding man - a bit rough around the edges, certainly - but no criminal. She stared at him with confusion and the vaguest sense of betrayal, though the latter came more from the way he kept glancing away from her in agitation.

He shrugged his shoulders, nodding his head to the man in the row ahead of him. "The genius in the cowboy hat there got in a bar fight with this A-rab. Drug us all in on it."

His friend glanced over his shoulder. "Took my wallet, Daniels. I_ told_ you."

Minnie sighed and shook her head. She supposed a brawl after a little too much liquor was to be expected from somebody like Dave and his friends, but she couldn't quite let herself feel relieved. Why did he keep looking away from her like a guilty man?

"So what brings you here, then?" he asked suddenly. She glanced up and met his eyes with an awkward grimace, glancing between him and the door of the warden's office.

"Um, Rick's...here."

Dave's eyes widened, and he scanned the row of men with obvious interest. Minnie took a step towards him and put a hand on his arm.

"Not _here,_ here," she said, lowering her voice. "He's in a cell...I brought money to get him out."

Dave nodded, but couldn't seem to resist looking up and down the row of arrestees again, just in case. She squeezed his arm and told him again:

"He's not here."

He turned back to her and met her gaze, and she saw it then. She really saw it, unmistakably, in his eyes. He was hiding something. He had a hard defensiveness about his expression, the way he always got when he was in trouble (or would be soon), ready for a fight before she even had a chance to accuse him. That man's hand was always on his pistol.

She looked him over carefully, and his eyes narrowed, more defensive. With a sigh, she reminded herself that this wasn't the proper place. She offered him a small smile and let her hand drift from his arm.

"I'm going to...talk with him, after this," she said, staring at him implicatively. "Are you going to be able to pay your way out of here? Is there somewhere I can meet you?"

Dave sniffed, not really looking at her again. He nodded his head, pressing his lips together in thought. "Go get a room at that, uh...what's it? Cleopatra's somethin'?"

"Cleopatra's Temple."

"Yeah, tell 'em I'll pay for it when I get there. They know me by now."

Minnie nodded her head. She leaned towards him but didn't kiss him, even though she wanted to. Even though it felt like the thing to do. He met her eyes, bristling and guilty as ever, and all she could do was force a smile and tell him she'd see him later. Her eyes were much clearer and more desperate than her voice, _I _am_ going to see you later, aren't I?_

What was he hiding?

Minnie tried to push away her feelings of uncertainty and suspicion, and squared her shoulders as she walked up to the warden's door. A guard looked her over with mean eyes, but she met his gaze valiantly and told him she was there to see the warden. Much to her surprise, he let her in without any further questioning. The foreboding slam of the door behind her only added to her confusion.

On other end of the small room sat a dirty, squat man in a green turban, staring up at her through his beady gaze in something like surprise. She met his eyes and gulped, feeling an immediate sense of uneasiness at being in his presence. She felt his eyes wander over her and straightened her shoulders. She told herself that he wasn't the first undesirable man to look her over and he likely wouldn't be the last, and that this was going to be a quick interaction. She'd hand him the money and that would be all. That would be all.

Just the same she had to fold her hands together in front of her to keep them from trembling. She offered him a polite smile and stepped a little closer to his desk.

"Hello. I'm Minnie Schwartz. We spoke on the phone about Rick O'Connell."

The warden's face split in an unpleasant yellow grin. "Oh, yes. Sit down! Sit down!"

Minnie ran her tongue over her lips, glancing back at the door cautiously before edging her way into one of the mismatched chairs in front of his desk. She sat stiffly on the edge of her seat, her purse clutched between her hands.

"I have the money - " she started to say.

Being so much closer to him, the way he was looking at her felt even more unsettling. At the sound of her voice, his gaze jerked away from her body and met her eyes in brief confusion. "What? Ah. Very good. Very good."

He stared at her a moment longer, and Minnie opened her purse with awkward fingers. She pulled out a little roll of bills and held it out to him. He looked at the money but didn't take it, and after a few seconds she decided to just put it on his desk.

They sat there in a dreadful silence with the money on the desk between them. The warden was still watching her, but Minnie told herself she had nothing to fear from him, and started to get out of her seat.

"Well," she said with a sigh, "there it is. So you can release Rick, and I won't take up any more of your time."

The warden stared up at her, his greedy eyes growing dark. The expression on his face might have passed for pity if his gaze hadn't been so cruel.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, miss, but the asking price has just changed."

Minnie's brow furrowed. "I'm sorry, you but you told me twenty-five dollars on the phone."

"You must have misunderstood me. I am quite sure I said _one-hundred_ and twenty-five dollars."

She stared back at him in disbelief. "You said twenty-five dollars."

The warden let out a little scoff, brushing the money towards the edge of the table. "It will not do."

Minnie breathed an impatient sigh, crossing her arms over her chest. "Well I don't have one-hundred and twenty-five dollars."

The warden smirked, leaning back in his chair in satisfaction. "Well then perhaps you and I could work something else out, between us."

Minnie stared at him, and as the seconds wore on, her eyes narrowed. She couldn't believe this man. She simply couldn't believe him. She'd traveled all the way to the prison late at night because he had told her Rick would be freed for twenty-five dollars. Now he was demanding five times that amount, and...Her stomach sunk in disgust at the suggestive raise of his eyebrows. Did he _really_ think she'd sleep with him just to get Rick out of prison?

She grimaced at him and shook her head, whirling around pertly.

"I guess he'll just have to stay in prison, then," she called over her shoulder, striding right to the door. Her voice was confident but her heart was pounding against the fear of a hundred terrifying situations; what if he trapped her here? What if he suddenly decided she had committed a crime and threatened to lock her in the prison unless she agreed to his vile terms? What if...? What if...?

But the door tugged open without any more trouble than the rusty hinges could give her, and she stormed into the hallway free of harm. Her heeled feet pounded against the grimy floor of the hallway, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't slow them down. _Even a greasy lech like him knows better than to rape a white woman within earshot of dozens of witnesses who already hate him,_ she reminded herself. She kept reminding herself, _I wasn't in any danger. Not really. Not really..._

But when she rushed past the row of arrestees and caught sight of Dave still standing there where she had left him, she stumbled to a stop and flung her arms around his neck, biting back a sob. His wrists were handcuffed together and they were both painfully aware of the curious way everyone (especially Dave's apparent friends) were looking at them, but the feel of him against her - of the steady, unworried beat of his heart - helped her catch her breath.

"What happened?" he asked as gently as he could, though she could tell he was straining against the instinctive urge to punish whomever had upset her, no questions asked.

"Nothing," she whispered. She took a step back from him and wiped at the moistness under her eyes. She shook her head. "Nothing at all happened, I just...I guess I let my imagination get the best of me."

He studied her in something like suspicion, but she was collecting herself by the minute, and after a while he nodded his head.

With a sniff, he glanced wearily towards the front of the line before returning his attention back to her. "You gonna go collect your fella, then?"

Minnie let out a dismal sigh and shook her head.

"That warden's a crook," she told him darkly. "He was suggesting...Well. It doesn't matter. Rick can take care of himself."

Dave didn't seem to have anything to say to that. She watched him a moment longer, biting uncertainly on her lip.

"You'll meet me soon?"

He gave her a wry smile. "Soon as I can."


	13. Fault

_Author's Note: Did you think I died? Because it's been almost a whole day without an update on this story. _

_Disclaimer: The characters of _The Mummy_ are the property of Universal Studios__. _

* * *

**1925**

* * *

**Fault**

_November 9, 1925_

Beni had a long walk to Rashida's apartment, and a part of him seriously entertained the idea of just putting off the visit til morning...or indefinitely...or just forgetting about it altogether. But he was already a week overdue on his own rent, and it was well past midnight, and he figured if he was pathetic enough, he might be able to talk Rashida into letting him sleep at her apartment. Of course, she supposedly didn't like him now, but most people didn't like Beni, and he managed to leech most everything he needed off of others whether they liked him or not.

Rashida and Beni really _had_ gotten along once.

But Beni wasn't thinking about Rashida as he trudged down the dark street, his oversized coat clutched tightly about him. He was thinking about Gad and his stupid debt with the mysterious woman he claimed controlled Cairo's entire underworld.

_If she is so important, why have I never heard of her?_

_Because you are an idiot foreigner, that's why._

Beni might not have been a native of Cairo, but he understood Arabic considerably better than most foreigners. And in all the conversations he'd listened in on, he'd never once heard the name of Meela Nais.

_I don't understand. What are you so scared of a woman for? I thought you Egyptian men did not entertain such nonsense from women._

_Ah, but this is no woman, my friend. This is a she-devil. There is something about her that leaves a man completely powerless._

_Must be her ass._

Beni honestly thought Gad was making up some story to dupe him, and he told him as much. He and the warden were on mildly friendly terms; Beni had soon learned that Gad was the kind of man who was always interested in making a reasonable compromise if it benefitted him in some way, and Gad made use of Beni's treacherous nature and criminal connections. Which wasn't to say that Beni particularly liked the warden - but he knew how to make a deal. And Beni could get along with anyone he could haggle mercy from.

And even though he was more than a little annoyed at being dragged to the prison when he'd done _nothing_ wrong (well, nothing that the police would be aware of, anyway), he was relieved to learn that Gad was just after some money to pay off a debt. So he told him to call Dr. Bartos, because God knew the man was good for it.

Beni got a little nervous when Dr. Bartos didn't pick up at his office, or his home. But his maid told Gad he was still at the museum, and managed to produce a phone number. Everything after the good doctor arrived was a breeze. Dr. Bartos already liked him on an unnatural level from most of the tourists who employed him, thanks to their shared Hungarian heritage and Dr. Bartos' soft, religious heart. Beni had easily been able to convince him that he was a God-fearing family man - which, he supposed, was at least half-true...

But anyway, he was more than a little curious about this Meela Nais woman and her alleged importance. He was going to find out about her, if only to know for certain she was real and not some urban legend Gad had conjured up just to rob him.

He'd just reached the door of Rashida's apartment building, his feet aching in their worn sandals. He let himself in and labored up the stairs, exaggerating a limp in preparation. He would have to look truly pathetic to convince Rashida to let him stay, especially if she was angry with him.

He arrived at Rashida's door and let out a long sigh, putting on a miserable expression and wide eyes. He knocked on the door and waited; after a minute, he had to relax his face and knock again. By the third time he knocked, he was scowling.

At last she cracked open the door, glaring at him with heavy eyes. They quickly narrowed when they registered who was at the door.

"Go away," she told him sharply.

"But Rash - "

He didn't even get her name out of his mouth before she was closing the door on him, but his quick fingers slipped between the door and the frame and stopped her.

"It's about your brother," he said, giving her an emphatic look. Her eyes widened, and her grip loosened on the door. Her mouth twitched thoughtfully, and then she opened it the rest of the way. She stood there in a threadbare nightgown, her hair a beautiful mess about her face, and she blocked him from taking a step inside.

"What about him?" she asked, her voice pricked with an emotion between worry and skepticism. Basim was often in any kind of minor trouble, but she certainly feared the day someone arrived to tell her he'd suffered something truly terrible.

He shrugged his shoulders, glaring at her childishly. "Why don't you let me in and I will tell you?"

"I'm not letting you in."

"Why not?" he demanded.

She opened her mouth to retort something, but quickly bit it back. She leveled her gaze at him airily. "I don't have to have a reason. I just don't want you to come in."

Beni crossed his arms over his chest. "Fine. Then I will not tell you what happened to Basim."

Rashida stared back at him suspiciously, looking over his face and searching for the symptoms of a lie. He glared at her impatiently, shifting his weight between his feet, and after a few minutes he whined:

"But my feet are killing me because I have come _all this way_, _in the middle of the night,_ just to tell you."

She pressed her lips together, studying him for another moment before at last letting out a sigh of defeat. She stepped aside and he scurried in, plopping down on the only chair she had. Rashida reluctantly closed the door and turned around to look at him, standing with her hands on her hips.

"Alright. Here you are. Where is Basim?"

Beni leaned against the worn upholstery of the chair and closed his eyes. She watched him kick off his shoes with a disgruntled frown on her lips.

"Prison," he mumbled.

Rashida stared back at him in disbelief. "Prison? That's it?"

"Yep."

She let out a frustrated, _"ugh!"_ and stormed across the room in her bare feet, grabbing him roughly by his arm.

"Come on. You're leaving."

_"Rashiiida..."_

His accent was especially nerve-grating when he dragged her name out like that.

He refused to move from the chair, and she let go of him, reaching down and picking his shoes off of the floor instead.

"Get up!" she told him in a strained, quiet voice, throwing one of his shoes at him. It hit him in the shoulder with a smack and he flinched alert, his eyes snapping open angrily.

"Hey!" he shouted.

Rashida started to shush him, but his voice had already woken up the baby in the other room. She shot him a hard glare and threw the other shoe at him, hitting him right in the chest. Beni stood up, but she was already across the room, opening her bedroom door and slipping inside. He stalked after her, furious and wounded.

"What the hell is your problem?" he demanded.

Rashida turned and stared at him from where she stood by the bed, her crying baby wrapped in her arms. She stared at his thin form silhouetted by the faint glow of the kerosene lamp in the other room, and she shook her head.

"My problem is that it is late," she told him testily over Fadil's cries. "My problem is that you have woken up my son. My problem is that I have to work in the morning, which is what honest people do. I don't have time to - "

She stopped, and waited for Fadil to finish a wail and take a breath.

"I don't have time to entertain you loafing about in my apartment in the middle of the night!"

Beni sniffed, glancing to the baby with a frown. "Why is he crying?"

Rashida let out an impatient sigh. "He's hungry."

"So feed him."

She glared up at him implicatively, but didn't say another word. She sat down on her bed and pushed the strap of her nightgown off of her shoulder, cradling her son to her breast. He immediately quieted down and began to suckle, and for a moment the only sounds in the room were his little noises and sighs. Beni watched her sitting there, even though she wouldn't look at him. He watched her and she must have been painfully aware of his eyes, but she never showed it. She stared down at the baby as if she could ignore Beni out of existence.

"You need to leave," she said after a few minutes.

Beni crossed his arms over his chest and leaned in the doorway. "Why are you being so cruel to me?"

Rashida finally glanced up, staring at him with dark, guarded eyes. She told him pointedly, "I know what you did."

His eyes narrowed defensively. "What did I do?"

She breathed a disbelieving, humorless laugh, and her mouth spread with a bitter smile. She stared at him and shook her head. "Beni, you _know_ what I'm talking about. I know you do."

Beni let out a snort and glanced up impatiently. "I don't."

Fadil's suckling quieted to slow, sleeping breaths. Rashida glanced down and carefully detached him from her, laying him down in the middle of the bed before properly covering herself again. She looked up at Beni and sighed wearily.

"You took the money," she said, very quiet, but very sure. "You took Basim's share when you robbed that Englishman's house, and it is _your_ fault he couldn't pay his way out. It is _your_ fault that he was almost hanged."

Beni scoffed, glaring at her through narrowed, defensive eyes. "Oh. So it is _my_ fault you have a son, eh? That's what you are saying?"

Rashida just stared back at him, her shoulders rising and falling in a helpless shrug. "It's your fault, Beni."

His jaw tightened, and he glanced away from her, glaring at the doorframe, his hands flexing against his arms.

"It is not my fault," he muttered at the floor.

She let out a loud sigh. he turned back and looked at her.

"Nobody made you do anything. And if your son is such a burden, you could have put him in an orphanage."

Rashida gasped back a breath, staring back at him with wide, angry eyes. "I could _not_ have put him in an orphanage! And I could not have let my brother die. You know, Beni, just because everyone is expendable to_ you_, does not mean we all feel that way."

Beni tilted his head, glaring at her in a way that was reminiscent of a pouting child. "Well, I guess I am expendable to you. I teach you English, and this is the thanks I get."

"Oh, please," she retorted, stopping herself with her mouth open when Fadil stirred in his sleep. She glanced up at Beni emphatically and held up a finger for him to wait, pulling herself carefully out of bed and creeping across the room. He backed out of the doorway, and she pulled the bedroom door shut behind her. She looked up at him impatiently. "You barely taught me any English. You just used it as an excuse to put your hands on me."

"Well you learned the parts of the body, didn't you?" he retorted. "And besides, you never made such a fuss about me putting my hands on you."

Rashida's teeth clenched, and she glared up at him steadily. "I tolerated what I thought I had to, to survive."

"Please. I know what being tolerated feels like. You _more_ than tolerated me."

She shook her head in disbelief, and raised her hand to deliver a hard slap across his face.

"Get out of my house!" she told him angrily, pushing past him to throw open her door. She pointed out into the hall. "Don't come back here!"

He glared at her, rubbing his face in a dramatic display. But she wasn't willing to entertain another moment with him. She took him by the shoulder and shoved him out the door.

"Hey! My shoes!" he called just as she slammed the door after him. He went for the door knob, but he heard the lock click just before he could grasp it. He spat a stream of Hungarian curses at the floor and took a breath, begrudgingly adapting a more groveling tone. "_Rashida_...there is broken glass in your stairwell. Rashida?"

The lock jingled, and the door opened just enough for her to hurl his shoes right at him.

For the second time that night.


	14. Brimming

_Disclaimer: The characters of _The Mummy_ are the property of Universal Studios__. _

* * *

**1925**

* * *

**Brimming**

_November 10, 1925_

Beni wasn't the only one with his shoes in his hands.

Minnie sat uncertainly on the edge of the bed, her favorite pair of black heels clutched in her grip. The room was dark except for the moonlight pouring in from a large window on the opposite wall. A hippo head mounted above the bed cast an almost fiendish shadow across the white sheets, covering Dave's sleeping face and most of his body.

Something was wrong. Minnie could tell.

He'd arrived about two hours after she saw him at the prison, tired and agitated. He got undressed and she listened to him grumble about the warden and the money he'd demanded to let them go free and the general stupidity of his friend Gabe Henderson. He assured her she'd get to see his stupidity for herself soon enough, but there was something peculiar and half-hearted about his tone.

Minnie was an observant person by nature, but her love of writing had tuned that sense into a precise kind of study. She watched people - all people - and the way they raised their eyebrows or frowned or laughed at a joke. She watched the expression in their eyes when they exaggerated or became angry. She had a fascination with mannerisms, and she liked Dave's. She liked the gruff way he used his voice and the smirk in the corner of his eye when he knew he was about to say something clever. She especially liked the bull-headed way he protected a lie, like he could bully a person into forgetting the issue. And even though he didn't realize it, he had been something of a bully that night.

Not to her, exactly. Oh, he snapped a few responses when he ordinarily would have used a normal tone, but he had the excuse of being tired and having spent most of the evening in handcuffs. He'd been a bully about the room, though, shoving drawers and yanking faucets and cursing impatiently at the temperature of the water. She'd watched him with raised eyebrows.

_Is everything okay?_

_'Course not. I been in a goddamn prison for the last two and a half hours. All I want's a shower and bed._

And that's what he got. She listened to him rant about the warden, leaning against the sink in the bathroom while he showered. She waited for him to invite her in with him, but he never did. She stood there in the stifling steam until she couldn't take it anymore. She told him she was going to bed and he said he'd be there in a minute.

She supposed she'd expected to at least fool around a little bit, but he was clearly in no mood. And she didn't really mind; it was late and she'd had a trying day, and she could use the sleep. But she couldn't shake the feeling that he was avoiding her for another reason entirely. He was being so very defensive...

He got into bed next to her and fell asleep within a few minutes. He snored there beside her and she stared up at the ceiling, trying to make sense of her suspicions. She hadn't really been seeing Dave that long; she was hardly sure why she started seeing him at all. She'd never cheated on anyone before, and she'd certainly been with men who deserved it more than Rick. Rick was a decent person, even if he did have some questionable associates. They'd met at a bar one day when Minnie first arrived in Egypt, sunburned and lost and frightened. She knew she'd wandered over to the wrong side of town and she didn't have a clue how to get herself back to her hotel, and he offered to take her. He had such kind eyes.

She liked Rick, and she felt safe with him. They rarely did more than share the same bed, but she liked him. He didn't complicate things. He gave her a place to sleep and good company, and helped her find a job taking care of Rashida's son. He did what he did during the day, and she did what she did during the day, and at night they got into the same bed. And if they were feeling alone, they would do something very similar to making love, never really knowing more about the other except the feel of their body. It was artificial company and she didn't mind...until she met Dave.

She didn't know why she liked Dave more than Rick, but she had, instantly. Perhaps he reminded her of home, even though he lacked a Wisconsin accent and had never been to a dairy farm. He reminded her of home, of the kind of man she always assumed she'd settle down with. Rick reminded her of a hero in a novel. She never really had cared much for heroes.

Of course, Rick must not have been as heroic as she thought, since he'd gotten himself in prison. It occurred to her just then that in her haste to be out of the warden's presence, she'd forgotten to ask what he was doing in there at all. She knew Beni and Izzy were criminals, and she probably should have realized a while ago that Rick must be making his money dishonestly, too. But this was the first time he'd ever gone to prison in Minnie's memory.

What _had_ he done?

She glanced back at Dave now, still sitting on the edge of the bed with her shoes in her hands. She didn't exactly know why she'd gotten up and put her clothes back on. She was awake and anxious, and she'd told herself she ought to try rolling up her hair like she'd seen in a magazine ad. She'd focus on the task and clear her mind of suspicions.

Instead her suspicions had taken hold of her, and before she knew it, she was looking at herself in the mirror - hair up, cosmetics on. Her dress was crumpled on the floor of the bathroom next to Dave's shirt, and she decided to put it on, just to see how the whole look came together. She reached down and picked up her dress, and happened to take a breath. And she froze.

She swore she could smell perfume - the expensive, lingering kind. The kind she couldn't afford to wear. She sniffed her dress just to make sure, and then she noticed Dave's shirt only a few inches away.

That's why she was sitting on the bed with her shoes in her lap. She couldn't remember smelling perfume on him at the prison, but the hallway reeked and she was so frightened after her meeting with the warden, she was hardly paying attention to anything, anyway. But he might not have had perfume on him then, either. He might have gone somewhere else after he was released...

It didn't seem like he had. But how could she know? Regardless, he'd obviously been near another woman long enough to catch her perfume on his shirt. Dave had always told her he didn't have anyone else, and he had no reason to lie to her; she had Rick, after all.

Something was wrong. She didn't know what, but something was wrong. She wanted desperately to ask him about it, but she knew he'd be even more defensive if she woke him up from his sleep. No, she'd have to wait until morning...

But she didn't have to stay in this room. She was too anxious, sick with suspicion and an aggravating sense of foolishness, and she simply couldn't sleep. The bar in the lobby served drinks all night, and Minnie decided she might as well have one.

She glanced at the clock in the moonlight and was just able to make out the time; it was well after one o'clock in the morning. Hopefully the bar wouldn't be too busy, but the kind of wealthy tourists who stayed at Cleopatra's Temple rarely stopped partying this early in the night.

With a sigh and one last uncertain glance at Dave, Minnie tugged on her shoes and crept across the room. She had her purse and a key, and soon she'd have a glass of wine. Merlot always put her right to sleep.

She strode purposefully down the hall and took the elevator to the lobby, surprised by how very quiet the bar was as she neared it. She remembered offhand that a jazz club had just opened; maybe that's where they all went...

The bar was vacant except for a tall, thin man nursing a scotch. Minnie glanced at all of the empty barstools around him and debated whether she should let him alone or try to be friendly. With a sigh, she walked over to him. She'd order near him, and then she'd be able to tell if he was worth sitting by or not. She got the attention of the bartender and asked for a glass of merlot, and glanced at the man while she waited on her wine. She liked the affable lines of his face, and something about his weary eyes made her curious. He met her gaze and she gave him a smile.

"Looks like we're the only ones here," she said, glancing away from him to thank the bartender for her wine.

He blinked hard, looking her over just a little too long. He gave her a charming grin and gestured at the seat beside him. "Well, then there isn't any point in sitting alone, is there?"

She shrugged, climbing up onto the barstool. "I suppose not."

"You're an American."

"Yes. And you're English."

He chuckled. "Look at us. We have such keen ears for accents."

Minnie smiled and offered him her hand. "I'm Minnie."

He took it and gave a firm shake. "Jonathan."

She picked up her glass and took a long sip. She liked the way it warmed through her head. She liked the way it made her notice how Jonathan's eyes reminded her of the desert sky. _Wide and open and brimming with possibilities, lightness and darkness and nothingness and everything, _she thought, and hoped she was sober enough to remember it later.

"What brings you to Egypt?" she asked him.

He laughed. "Oh, darling, I'm from here, actually." He told her about his parents and she thought they sounded perfectly charming - an Englishman and an Arab girl, exploring the desert together. Wide and open and brimming with possibilities.

"Then why are you here at a hotel?" she wondered aloud. She hadn't meant to actually ask him, but her wine glass was already half-drained.

Jonathan scratched the back of his neck nervously, and probably because he'd already started on his second scotch (since she'd arrived), he told her, "It's rather funny, actually. I saw an old friend of mine...alright, I may as well say it, a lady friend. I hadn't seen her in ages, and...well, we actually ended things on less than pleasant terms."

Minnie's eyes widened in interest. "Was she upset to see you again?"

Jonathan shook his head. "Hardly. She has the most ostentatious diamond and a, er...you know, she's wide about the family way, if you catch my meaning."

"She's pregnant?"

He nodded. "That exactly."

Minnie shook her head, exaggerated and dramatic from the wine. "Were _you_ terribly upset to see her, then?"

Jonathan took a sip from his glass and met her eyes. He had a thoughtful frown about his eyebrows that she couldn't help but find deliciously charming. He looked at her and he said:

"You know what, love? I actually was. Let me get another of those for you," he added, waving the bartender over to refill Minnie's glass. She didn't protest, even though she thought she probably should. He turned back to her with his serious, focused eyes. "You see, the last time I saw this woman, she was a perfect mess over me. She tried to French kiss another woman, I swear on my life."

"No!"

He nodded emphatically. "Swear on my life. And here I see her, barely a year later, and she's already hitched up with some other bloke, knocked up and all."

Minnie picked up her newly-filled glass of wine and took a long sip.

"I think we - I mean_ all_ of us, not just you and I, darling - I think we...we have a problem of thinking we're all a lot bloody more important than we actually are. Do you know what I mean?"

She glanced up and looked him in the eye.

"Here I thought I'd broken this poor woman's heart to smitherines. I thought she'd join a convent or become one of those underground lady-lovers - you know, the sort that wears tuxedos and reads Marx? But there she was, ordinary as can be, and perfectly fine without me."

Minnie swallowed hard, and her eyes slipped to her glass. She let out a sigh. "I think I know just what you mean."

Jonathan let out a long sigh and took another drink from his scotch. "So being the fool I am, I suppose, I came up here wondering if I'd get a glimpse of her again. See if maybe she was just putting on a show of it in front of me. That's positively mad, isn't it?_ I_ certainly didn't want to marry her. I never even loved the woman."

She shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe you're right...we all just want to feel more important than we actually are."

Minnie could feel him studying her, and when she glanced up at him, his expression had softened considerably. He gave her a smile and nudged her. "Well, of course I'm only talking about me. I'm quite sure you're every bit as important as you ought to be to someone."

She stared back at him and blinked hard, remembering the perfume on Dave's shirt again. Was it really only earlier that day he'd been talking about families and settling down? She cared for him and she told him so...and his shirt smelled like someone else's perfume.

She stared at Jonathan, her heart pounding against her chest and the most disastrous tangle of emotions knotting themselves up and jumbling together. She couldn't make sense of anything except Jonathan's eyes, wide and open and brimming with possibilities. She couldn't make sense of anything. She leaned closer to him, and she watched his eyes dart to her lips. She sucked in a breath, her hand only inches from his but too shy to move and touch it.

"Jonathan," she whispered. She wanted to feel him next to her, his arms around her and the warmth of his chest. She wanted his cologne on her dress. _Kiss me, please. I'm begging you to._

He leaned over and kissed her, his hand on her face, on her neck, in her hair. He kissed her, urgent and uninhibited, tasting like scotch. She wrapped her arms around his neck and breathed him in, the smell of expensive cologne, the kind that lingers...

He kissed her the way only blue-eyed strangers can kiss, wide and open and brimming with possibilities.


	15. Sold

_Disclaimer: The characters of _The Mummy_ are the property of Universal Studios__. _

* * *

**1925**

* * *

**Sold**

_November 10, 1925_

Basim's situation was anything_ but_ brimming with possibilities.

He was shackled to the wall of an overcrowded cell; apparently the prison was bursting at its seams tonight. The close, cramped room managed to be cold and stuffy at the same time, the air thick with the stench of too many unwashed bodies. Basim let out a sigh and tried desperately to find a comfortable position to sleep in.

Someone across the dark little room was eyeing him in the moonlight.

"Hey, how did you get those scars?"

Basim rolled his eyes and pretended to ignore him.

"I got mine in a knife fight with German Rockeweigh. You heard of him?"

Basim sighed loudly and barely glanced at the other man, but when he caught sight of his face in the faint light, he had to squint to make sure he was really seeing what he thought he was seeing. The man had deep, horrible lines curling from the corners of his mouth in a Glasgow smile. Basim grimaced and looked away. Somehow they found him. Somehow they always found him - the others with their ugly scars. They always found him and they always had to tell him how they'd been disfigured. And they always wanted to know what had happened to him. Basim never told them.

He'd told Beni once, but that was a mistake after too much alcohol as a new drinker.

He really couldn't tell anyone how he'd gotten them without first explaining the Med-Jai, which wasn't supposed to exist in the first place. A conversation about his scars inevitably turned into a lengthy discussion about Hamunaptra and the curse of He That Shall Not Be Named. Beni had long claimed he'd been to Hamunaptra, but until that conversation, Basim had just assumed he was another con-artist looking to dupe tourists.

_I was there, my friend. I did not see any of the gold they say is there. Only feelings of evil._

_It_ is_ evil. The curse is real. If anyone dared to awaken the Creature, it would use his body to regain invincibility. _

Beni had a healthy fear of curses, and he listened to Basim intently. He told him, _I never take anyone to Hamunaptra. I will never go back there. Not for anything. _

_Where do you take them, then?_

_Eh...nowhere. Just...the middle of nowhere._

_Don't they get angry?_

_I don't know. _And then he'd chortled drunkenly over his vodka. _I have never stayed around long enough to find out!_

Basim wondered if Beni actually went to Rashida's apartment and told her where he was. He wondered if she would come up here and try to bail him out, though he doubted that she would. She'd told him she would never do anything to get him out of prison ever again. She'd let them hang him, she said. But Basim knew she was merely bluffing - at least about letting him be hanged; she was just trying to scare him into living an honest life. Rashida didn't understand, though. The British treated Arab men like slaves; he'd work like a dog for meager wages, and he didn't want to live that way. He hated the threat of prison always looming over his head, but it was much better than hard labor.

Suddenly he was jarred out of his sound by heavy, metallic ringing; just then a guard had knocked on the bars of the cell loudly, causing all but the most sound sleepers to startle awake.

"Basim Abdul!" the guard growled.

Basim jumped at the sound of his name. "I'm here," he called.

The guard squinted into the darkness and picked his eyes out amongst the other faces.

"Someone to see you."

Basim waited as the guard found his way over to him, stepping over the limbs and bodies of the other men in the room. He unlocked Basim's shackles and jerked him to his feet, pulling his arms out in front of him and immediately snapping handcuffs over his wrists. Basim stumbled along behind the guard; he tripped over someone's leg and would have fallen to the ground, but the guard had a tight grip on his arm.

He was shoved out of the cell and down the hall to one of the visitor's rooms. Basim frowned. It had to be well after midnight by now; whomever was here to see him must have paid a hefty sum.

So it couldn't be Rashida.

The guard shoved him into the room, and he stumbled inside, his eyes momentarily dazzled by the half-hearted electric lightbulb hanging overhead. He squinted at the man standing before him like a black shadow, and gasped. Instinctively, he started to backpedal, but the foreboding figure stopped him with a word:

"You have nowhere to go, Basim."

He sucked in a breath and offered the visitor a nervous smile. "Chieftain Bay. What a pleasure to see you again."

Ardeth raised his eyebrows, but otherwise his severe expression was unmoved. "I have only come here for one reason, and then I am leaving."

Basim nodded his head and waited, his entire body tingling with fear and a cold sweat. Had Ardeth come to kill him? To finish the job the way the council had wanted?

"Your sister has a son," Ardeth said in a stiff voice.

Basim's brow furrowed in confusion, but he nodded his head. "Yes. Fadil - "

"Who is his father?"

Basim stared at him, his mouth gaping for a moment in shock. He couldn't believe that Ardeth Bay - the chieftain of the Med-Jai, the man responsible for his scars and his banishment - would come all the way to Cairo Prison in the dead of night just to ask about his baby nephew. Basim eyed the other man suspiciously, wondering what interest Ardeth could possibly have in Fadil. Of course, he was Rashida's son, but Ardeth had surely married another Med-Jai girl by now...

Basim closed his mouth after a moment and shrugged. He told Ardeth casually, "Warden Hassan."

Ardeth blinked. Now he stood there, awestruck and perplexed, his brow furrowed in consternation. His lips twitched with an expression between a grimace and wordless disbelief, and then finally, after at least two or three minutes of utter silence, he asked:

"Hassan? The prison warden, here?"

Basim nodded his head.

"That horrible rat of a man whom I paid seventy-five pounds just to meet with you?"

Basim had to fight back a scoff. "Only seventy-five pounds? Gad must be feeling generous tonight."

Ardeth was hardly amused. He stood there in disgusted shock, his face pale and sick. He shook his head, rubbing his face wearily.

"How did this happen?" he asked in a pained voice. His black gaze snapped up to Basim's. "Did he force himself on her?"

Basim shook his head. "No...she agreed to it."

_"Why?"_

Basim swallowed hard, shifting his weight as he told Ardeth every awkward detail of the burglary with Beni. How they'd broken into a wealthy Englishman's home and been caught by a maid, and how they both ended up arrested but Beni was able to pay his way out with the money they stole. The Englishman was so furious that he insisted Basim be hanged, but the warden was willing to lie to the Englishman and let Basim go free if Rashida slept with him.

And she did.

All the while Ardeth kept shaking his head, a look of horror on his face. He glared at Basim in angry disbelief, his fists clenched at his sides. "How could you let her do such a thing?"

Basim shrugged, taking an uneasy step back. "Sh-she wanted to. She didn't want me to die - "

"The only thing a woman in her situation has is her dignity!" Ardeth shouted. "You let her sell herself like a harlot to that despicable man and give birth to his son just to save your own neck? Now she has nothing!"

Basim swallowed hard, his eyes darting about the room. He held up his chained hands helplessly.

"How could you do such a thing to her, after all she has done for you?" Ardeth demanded, stalking across the room towards the other man. Basim grimaced in fear as Ardeth came to a halt just in front of him, glaring down at the small, thin man. "You do not deserve the life she sold herself to save."

Basim was too frightened to think of a single thing to say. He cowered there, his hands trembling enough to make his handcuffs clink. He eyed the deadly scimitar in Ardeth's scabbard, praying desperately that the man didn't decide to use it on him.

"Look at me," the chieftain demanded. Reluctantly, Basim met his black, furious eyes. "Your sister is returning to the tribe. I am going to make her my wife."

In spite of his fear, Basim squeaked, "The council agreed to that? Even with Fadil?"

Ardeth's eyes narrowed, and Basim held up his hands in surrender.

"They will agree," he told him mysteriously, his voice as certain as stone. Basim gulped and nodded his head, staring up at Ardeth with wide, desperate eyes.

"You are not going to kill me, are you?" he asked in a voice that shook.

Ardeth's brow furrowed, and he took a small step back. "No. Rashida loves you. I could never do such a thing to her with my own hands."

Basim tried to take comfort in his words, but that phrase, _with my own hands,_ set him nervously on edge. He nodded his head and took a step back, glancing over his shoulder at the door longingly. He heard Ardeth let out a sigh that sounded chiding, dismissing him as a pathetic, cowardly excuse for a man. But Basim supposed he already knew what Ardeth thought of him.

He hadn't had those tattoos burned off as a reward for bravery.

Ardeth gave him one last glare and brushed past him to the door, telling the guard on the other side of it that he was finished. He stepped out into the hall after the men, and watched as Rashida's brother was led back to his cell with a grim kind of look about his face. After a moment, Ardeth let out a sigh and happened to glance at the cell just to the right of where he stood. Sitting on the floor and leaning against the bars was a large, tawny-skinned man, surprisingly alert for the hour. He met Ardeth's eyes with something like defiance, probably studying the tattoos on his face in interest. Ardeth studied him back, taking in his size and his comfortable nonchalance in the cell; this was a man used to prison.

With a thoughtful frown, Ardeth squatted down beside him, leveling his gaze with the other man's.

"What is your name?" he asked.

The man scoffed. When he spoke, his voice had a decidedly French affect. "Who wants to know?"

Ardeth reached calmly into his robes and produced a bag of gold coins. He tugged open the drawstrings and let the moonlight catch on their bright faces. The prisoner's eyebrows rose.

"Jacques Clemons," he said.

Ardeth nodded his head and gestured in the direction Basim had gone. "Did you get a good look at the man who just passed us?"

Jacques shrugged. "Good enough." His studious eyes narrowed at Ardeth again. "He has scars where you have tattoos, no?"

Ardeth didn't respond, his gaze wandering down the hall where Basim was certainly settled into his cell. He took a breath, and turned back to Jacques.

"Would you be willing to kill him?"

Jacques' face split into a wide, sinister grin. He nodded his head. "For a price."

* * *

_Author's Note:__ I have been wanting to work Red, Jacques and/or Spivey (from TMR) into a fic FOREVER. I haven't watched TMR as many times, and those characters aren't in it for nearly as long as the Americans are in the first one, but still. I thought it'd be fun to give Jacques a cameo. They never make an appearance!_


	16. Forgiven

_Author's Note: This is merely to point out...that the last 15 chapters all took place over the course of one day. Ho. Ly. Crap._

_Disclaimer: The characters of _The Mummy_ are the property of Universal Studios__. _

* * *

**1925**

* * *

**Forgiven**

_November 10, 1925_

By the time Ardeth made it to Rashida's apartment, it was almost dawn, and weariness had overcome him completely. His eyes were heavy as he trudged up the stairs to the floor where she lived, and he wanted nothing more than to find a quiet place to sleep. But he knew she worked, and he was desperate to speak with her before she left.

This time when he strode down the hallway, it was empty. There were no playing children or suspicious gossips. Everything was very quiet, and very dark, and he regretted that he was about to knock on Rashida's door and wake her out of a certainly peaceful slumber. He pictured her lying there, her beautiful face relaxed, her dark hair spread all around her, her chest rising and falling, and rising and falling...

And the baby, of course, curled up there by her side. She probably kept his arm over him all night to be sure he never rolled off of the bed. A curious Western device, the bed. Ardeth and Rashida had grown up sleeping on thick rugs on the floor, curled up next to their siblings and parents, everyone together and safe. But Westerners didn't sleep with their children next to them, and so they had no use for sleeping low, where a baby couldn't roll away and get hurt. The bed in Rashida's apartment must have belonged to the previous tenant, or the landlord.

Perhaps in this poor, likely infested building, there was good reason to sleep off of the ground.

Ardeth arrived at her door and knocked. After a few minutes, the door cracked open just enough for her to get a glimpse of him waiting there, and then it opened all the way. She stood before him in her nightgown, soft and thin and translucent in the gray early morning, with her hair falling down her shoulders. He'd expected her eyes to be weary, but they were bright and wide and alert, and this time, without the gawking eyes of the women in the hall, she didn't seem ashamed to stand before him with bare arms and uncovered hair.

Her arms weren't the only part of her that was bared. Her nightgown had a sinfully low neckline, and his throat felt dry just to see her the way he'd always imagined seeing her on their wedding night. He'd pictured her just like this, and he longed to kiss her. For a flashing moment he imagined pushing her against the wall, tearing her nightgown from her body and seeing every last part of her, feeling every last part of her, the way he'd always wanted to...

"Good morning," she said quietly, her voice pulling his attention away from her body. Sheepishly, he looked up into her eyes.

"Good morning," he said, clearing his throat and forcing the last traces of that passionate image from his mind. "I would like to speak with you about something."

Rashida nodded her head slowly, and peeked out into the hall, looking to be sure no one could see before stepping aside and allowing him into her apartment.

"Would you like some coffee?" she asked in a voice just barely above a whisper. A little smile tugged at the corner of her lips. "You look like you need it."

Ardeth nodded his head. She crossed the room to the stove, shoved in the midst of a few broken cupboards, and found a cup for him. He watched the muscles in her back and shoulders move as she poured his coffee.

How he ached for her.

"Rashida, I still want you to be my wife."

She froze with her back still turned to him. He saw her hands flex around the coffee cup. After a moment, she turned to face him with wide, confused eyes.

"Ardeth, we can't..."

He shook his head, and crossed the room to her in a long, determined strides. "I don't care what you have done. I have forgiven all of it. I only want you."

She stared up at him, a strange emotion flickering in her eyes. He reached to touch her arm, but she flinched away. Her eyes narrowed.

_"You_ forgive_ me?"_ she demanded. "For what?"

Ardeth blinked, his mouth gaping for a few perplexed moments before he was able to stammer, "For - for committing adultery - for having a child with that disgusting warden - "

Rashida's eyes flashed, and her mouth jerked with a suspicious frown. "How do you know Fadil's father is the warden?"

He swallowed, shifting his weight between his feet. He looked up at her with soft, merciful eyes. "Rashida, these things can be found out. I had to know - "

"I didn't want you to know," she snapped. "You _knew_ I did not want you to know!"

Ardeth shook his head and reached for her arm again. "I don't care who his father is. I want to make him my son."

Rashida blinked, and even though her arm was tense beneath his hand, she let him touch her. She stared up at him in confusion, but he saw how she cared for him. He could see how desperately she wanted to be his again. And even though he knew the temptation was too great with her so beautiful in her nightgown, he took a step towards her and leaned down to kiss her.

She turned her head away. "Ardeth," she whispered.

He couldn't help the groan in his throat, but he nodded his head. "You are right. I could never stop myself..."

Rashida's brow furrowed. "That isn't why I stopped you."

"Then why?"

She shook her head and crossed the room away from him, gazing out the window at the coming dawn. She stared at the bright line of sunlight on the horizon with a thoughtful, far-off look on her face. After a moment she turned back and looked him in his eyes.

"I don't need your forgiveness," she told him pointedly. "I have let terrible men put their hands on me; my skin still crawls from their touch. Do you really think I have ever once betrayed you in my heart with such men as that? Do you really think I've committed_ adultery?_ Against_ you?"_

Ardeth didn't know what to say. He stared back at her and wished he had an answer.

Her eyes hardened. "My body is my only currency in this godforsaken city. I used it because I was desperate to survive. And the only reason - " She stopped herself, and gasped; it was the first indication that she had been holding off tears. She swallowed down the sob and told him in a trembling voice, "The _only_ reason I am out here at all is because you banished my brother when you could have pardoned him. I don't need your forgiveness. You need mine."

Ardeth gaped, utterly speechless. He could hardly believe the angry, betrayed way she glared back at him, the defensive set of her mouth and the sure way she stood there with her back straight, her shoulders squared. She stood like she'd been waiting months to tell him those very words, to throw that accusation in his face. He couldn't believe it.

"Rashida, the council called for Basim's blood - I _saved_ him - "

"You banished him," she said bitterly. "You as good as killed him. You knew he would die out here. And you sent me out here with him."

Ardeth's eyes widened. "I never banished you! No one blamed you for his sins. No one expected you to leave the tribe."

Rashida glared back. "Was I supposed to let the only son of my father die?"

He shook his head, his dark gaze wrought tight with hurt. Just seeing such an expression made the anger in her face soften a little, and she let out a shaking sigh.

"Rashida," he said softly, "you_ must_ know I did everything I could for Basim."

She closed her eyes and turned away.

"He abandoned two of his fellow warriors in an ambushed attack," he reminded. "One of those men was killed because he was not there to protect him. Basim left the man's wife a widow - he had young children - "

"I know," she snapped bitterly.

"Such cowardice does not befit a Med-Jai - "

"I know," she said again, louder. Her glare flashed up to his, regretful and defensive. "Basim is a coward and a fool and I know that. But when you banished him, you banished me. You must have known I would go with him."

Ardeth shook his head. "I didn't know."

Rashida glanced away. "He is my brother..."

"And I was your betrothed."

She stared at the floor, her mouth flinching against a sob. "You should have never made me choose."

Ardeth crossed the room to her in slow, uncertain steps. He put a hand on her arm, and he was relieved that she didn't push him away. She leaned into his touch, and boldly, he ran his hand up her arm, up to her face. He brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. It was so very soft. How he longed to tangle his fingers in her hair and kiss her.

She looked up at him and swallowed nervously, and he stared back down into her eyes, desperate for her.

"Forgive me," he whispered.

Rashida fought back tears, but one managed to slide down her face in a glistening trail. She nodded her head.

He couldn't take it any more; he simply could not live through another moment without her in his arms. He pulled her into an embrace and kissed her, his hands wandering over her smooth, warm skin. _Oh,_ how he wanted her. He would have given anything to have her right then, to make her his for once and all. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. He could feel every gentle curve of her body beneath his hands, and before sense had a chance to fight its way through the haze in his mind, he pushed her against the wall. His hand slipped down to her thigh and he grasped her nightgown in his fist, tugging it up until he could feel her skin beneath. He would have her. He could not stop himself.

A sudden, light knocking on the door made her freeze against him, though, and he had to stop. He opened his eyes and met her gaze in confusion. She let out a long, shaking sigh and gently stepped out of his embrace. Her whole body trembled as she made her way to the door. She opened it a crack, and through that narrow opening Ardeth caught a glimpse of a pretty white woman with green eyes. He saw her eyes widen in surprise when they caught sight of him, but Rashida pretended that there was nothing peculiar about his presence at all.

"Please come in, Minnie," she said in English, opening the door the rest of the way so that the other woman could come inside.

The woman called Minnie could hardly keep herself from gawking at Ardeth with his strange tattoos and exotic, dark robes. She swallowed nervously and edged into the room, casting several glances at Rashida in confusion.

"I'm sorry I'm early," she said. "I can go get a pastry or something - and come back - "

"No, stay," Rashida said in her careful, accented voice. She glanced up at Ardeth emphatically. "My friend was just leaving."

Minnie nodded and darted across the room to Rashida's chair. She sat down stiffly, her hands flexing on her purse in anticipation.

"There is coffee on," Rashida told her before turning back to Ardeth. She went back to speaking Arabic, _"I must get ready for work."_

He nodded his head. _"I need to return to the tribe."_

They stared at one another a moment longer, and then Ardeth said, _"I am going to tell the council that we have had a child together out of wedlock - "_

_"Ardeth - "_

_"I am going to ask that they allow us to marry and correct our mistake."_

Rashida shook her head, gazing up at him with worried eyes. _"Ardeth...they don't have to allow us to marry. They can take the caliphate away from you - "_

_"I don't care,"_ he told her fiercely. _"I must have you."_

She sucked in a breath, her face marked with fear and incredulousness. She stared at him a moment longer before she ran her tongue over her lips, accepting his determination. She must have known she could not change his mind. She must have known she didn't want him to.

_"The council loves you,"_ she said slowly. _"They will probably allow it..."_

Ardeth nodded. She gazed at him steadily, her lips trembling with unspoken words. At last she told him, _"I want my brother to be pardoned."_

He stared at her. _"Rashida..."_

But her determined expression was unmoved. _"He needs me,"_ she told him simply. _"I can't leave him in this city by himself."_

For a long time, Ardeth was unable to speak. He thought about Basim in prison, perhaps wandering about the prison yard at this very moment. And he thought of Jacques Clemons and the money Ardeth had promised to pay him for Basim's life. He hadn't wanted Basim's death - not when he'd betrayed his fellow warriors, and not now - but he knew what needed to be done to please the council. He knew what needed to be done to finally make Rashida his wife.

So he stared back at her, and, using all of the trust she had built in his dark eyes and unflinching earnestness, he lied to her.

_"I will."_


	17. Stink

_Disclaimer: The characters of _The Mummy_ are the property of Universal Studios__. _

* * *

**1925**

* * *

**Stink**

_November 10, 1925_

Minnie was wondering if the man who had just left Rashida's apartment was Fadil's father. She couldn't really think of any other reason why Rashida would have a male guest so early in the morning. The man was so very peculiar and foreboding; he might have had a handsome face if it wasn't for his tattoos, which Minnie found unnerving and distracting. He seemed so severe, dressed all in back, and she had to admit - he frightened her. She hoped she'd seen the last of him, whomever he was.

Fadil had woken up before Rashida left for work, but he was back down for a nap now. Minnie was alone in the quiet apartment with the sore remnants of a hangover and nothing to do. She supposed she could write, but she wasn't even remotely in the mood. After several listless moments pacing about the apartment, she reluctantly settled into the chair and tried to think through the blur of last night's events.

She really didn't want to think about last night, not any part of it. She was consumed with a toxic mixture of dread and regret; she was so angry with Dave, so angry with him. But she wished she hadn't kissed that Englishman (What was his name? Nathan?), even though he'd been...well...marvelous. The touch of his lips had sent a thrill through her, and she found herself wishing she'd gotten a hotel room with him...even while she wished she'd never kissed him at all. She found herself imagining that Englishman with his blue eyes (God, what _was_ his name?), what he would have felt like in the darkest part of the morning...

What was it Oscar Wilde had said about temptation, again?

Well, it didn't matter now. She didn't even know that Englishman's name, and even if she did...Dave still had perfume on his shirt. Minnie had gone back to her room after an awkward goodbye with the Englishman, but she still couldn't sleep. After a few hours of fitful dozing, she finally got up and left. She didn't wake Dave to tell him she was going; she just took a taxi to Rashida's apartment, figuring the Arab woman wouldn't mind if she dropped by early. She thought she might even appreciate it, having a set of hands to hold Fadil while Rashida got ready for work.

Instead, Fadil had been asleep and Rashida had a strange, frightening man in her apartment. Minnie hadn't anticipated that. Rashida might have had a bastard son, but she was far from promiscuous now. Minnie couldn't imagine her ever letting a man into the bed where her son slept.

That man must have been Fadil's father.

Minnie was just starting to consider what to get herself for breakfast, since all she'd had so far was coffee. But a knock on the door interrupted her contemplation. With a thoughtful frown, she got up and crossed the room. She had a feeling who was there before she opened the door.

There he was, tired and irritable even though he'd probably slept in a bit. His clothes were yesterday's and wrinkled. She could still smell the perfume.

"Hell were you this mornin'?" he asked instead of offering her a greeting.

Minnie raised her eyebrows. "I came to work. Those of us not on some exotic vacation have to do that, you know."

He scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Why didn't you tell me you was leavin'?"

"I didn't want to wake you."

"Ah, hell, Minnie," he grumbled, barreling his way into the apartment. Minnie sighed and closed the door behind him. He glanced about the room, probably in search of Fadil, before turning his agitated eyes back to her. "So what's the story, then?"

She looked at him airily. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Minnie, it is_ too damn_ early and I am _too damn_ hung over to play that game."

She let out a sigh and crossed her arms over her chest, meeting his eyes evenly. "You stink like women's perfume."

Dave frowned in confusion, and tugged up his shirt to give it a whiff. She saw his eyes widen in something like a guilty wince for a moment before he assumed that bristling defensiveness.

"Well it's probably yours."

Speaking of playing games.

Minnie raised her eyebrows incredulously. She wasn't even going to dignify that with a response. After a moment he let out a gruff sigh.

"Look, it's nothin' you need to worry over."

Minnie's expression was unmoved. "That's reassuring."

Dave's face twisted between impatience and aggravation. He started to hurl back a few different responses before throwing up his hands in frustration, pacing over to the window. She watched him, her hands flexing on her arms.

"Why don't you just tell me what happened," she said with surprising serenity.

He whirled around, his face still set in that scowl. "Nothing!"

Minnie raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Were you trying out women's perfumes for yourself?"

Dave glared back at her. "No!"

Minnie let out a sigh, glancing idly at her watch before looking up at him again. She stared into his eyes very seriously, her patience thin but her voice very calm:

"Dave, I'm willing to give this a go with you, but you're going to have to meet me halfway." Silence fell between them, and he stared stubbornly at the floor. Minnie took a breath. "If it helps, I can go first."

His eyes darted up to hers suspiciously, and she tried to quiet the pounding of her heart. _He_ was the one with perfume on his shirt. _He_ was the reason -

"I went down to the bar last night, after you went to sleep," she told him. "I had a drink with an English fellow, and he kissed me."

Dave's eyes widened. She could virtually see the anger boiling up inside him; his face became red, and his mouth set in a furious snarl.

"Come again?" he demanded.

But Minnie only stared back at him, her face as placid as ever. "What did _you_ do, Dave?"

He shook his head, crossing the room in a few, tense strides. His hand was on the doorknob.

"Dave - "

He flung open the door and whirled around to glare at her. "What goddamn difference does it make, Minnie? You don't ask me about perfume on my shirt, you just go off and whore yourself out to somebody in a bar!"

Minnie's jaw dropped. "A man kisses me, and you call me a whore?"

"Might as well be," he retorted bitterly.

She shook her head in angry disbelief, too startled to say a word. She hated how that happened - how that _always_ happened when she needed something to say. Give her a pen and she could write a seamless argument with exquisite retorts and quips, but put her in the middle of her own argument, and -

"Goodbye," he threw at her, and slammed the door after him. The walls shook from the force of it, and Fadil started crying.

Minnie sighed, glancing at the bedroom door thoughtfully.

Maybe Dave had been right in his suspicions about her yesterday; maybe she _was_ just one of those "liberated women," too wrapped up in her own pursuits to bother with things like husbands and families. She knew the way her Victorian mother would have handled a situation like this, and it certainly _wouldn't_ have involved kissing an Englishman.

She probably should have just woken him up and asked about the perfume.

She probably shouldn't have kissed that Englishman.

But Minnie felt strange, in that numb stretch of time after he left. She felt strange and almost emotionless, and she found herself missing Rick, suddenly. Rick who was passing the time with her. Rick who would never propose marriage just because they'd been living like married people for a little while now. Dave wanted her to break it off with Rick. He'd hinted at more serious matters, getting married and having children. He was the sort of person she thought she'd marry and have children with, only...

Only he got women's perfume on his shirt, and didn't think he needed to bother explaining himself. Only he got mad at her for kissing another man even though he'd clearly done as much or more with another woman.

Minnie wasn't so sure she wanted a man like that.

She wasn't so sure she wanted a man at all. Not forever, not for good.

Still, the longer the minutes dragged on, the more Fadil stirred and refused to go back to sleep, the more a kind of fear began to creep inside her. She couldn't explain it, and she didn't know what to think of it. She felt a vague sense of dread, knowing he'd stormed out of the room and would likely never be back. She felt the threat of loneliness, of time, the dooming question of whether she should have let him leave. She felt her mother's unspoken philosophy, _Any husband's better than none at all._ And for a brief moment, a part of her wanted to go after him.

But Fadil was crying, and Minnie knew...she knew even if Dave still happened to be near enough to catch - even if he let her wrap her arms around him and tell him she was sorry for kissing another man - even then, he'd still smell like perfume. And she didn't want to breathe that in again.


	18. Spoiled

_Author's Note: We're jumping ahead a week. I know, "Whaaat?! What about Rashida and Ardeth? Did Jacuqes kill Basim already? What are Jonathan and Evy even doing? Why did Rick get put in prison in the first place?" And such. Trust me! I know my avatar is of Beni taking a swig of scotch, but TRUST ME. _

_Disclaimer: The characters of _The Mummy_ are the property of Universal Studios__. _

* * *

**1925**

* * *

**Spoiled**

_November 17, 1925_

One week later, Viola was dabbing that very perfume under her ears and on her wrists in a happy rush, excited to make her way up to the deck now that the sun was setting. She'd boarded the barge that would take her down to Aswan that afternoon, and she absolutely loved traveling on the Nile. She always met the most interesting people when she traveled to and from Aswan.

She had picked out a perfectly sinful little navy dress, sleeveless and a _tad_ too short, with a saucy neckline she knew she could get away with because she was flat-chested and wouldn't look vulgar. The whole thing was covered in silver beads, woven together in some kind of art deco pattern, and the hem of the dress fluttered with tassels that would likely give away the color of her garters when they swung against her legs. It was a marvelous dress and she could only wear it on the barge, because Aunt Eunice would certainly make her burn it if she ever saw it on Viola's body.

She found the navy heels she'd packed to match, and a set of cream fishnet stockings that might give the appearance that she wasn't wearing hosiery at all. When she bought the dress, it had come with a matching headband, but she had something much nicer in mind. Two years ago her father had given her diamond hairpiece from Tiffany's, and she couldn't help but wear it any chance she got. She had piles and piles of pearl necklaces, too, and some bangles...but perhaps that would be too much...? She'd have to put it all together and see how she looked.

She did up her eyes in dark, dramatic smoke and painted her lips. Her hair had held up surprisingly well all day, and she thought fancifully that she looked like a princess when she adjusted the hairpiece over her stiff finger waves. She put on the stockings and the dress and decided at the last minute that she didn't want the pearls _or_ the bangles; there was a fine line between being fashionable and being garish, and besides, a girl's jewelry should never compete with her dress.

She put everything she needed in a little silver purse (to compliment the dress), and lit herself a cigarette before at last leaving the room. She was practically twitching with excitement, and she was dying for a cocktail.

She also needed to eat something, but she'd worry about that later.

The sun was making its way down the horizon as Viola stepped out onto the deck, taking a deep breath of the air even though it stank like the river. She glanced around until she caught sight of the bar, and was just making her way over when she heard a familiar, accented voice:

"Miss Chamberlain?"

Viola whirled around in surprise, her gaze colliding with Dr. Bartos' kind gray eyes. She offered him a smile, feeling just a little self-conscious when he took in her ensemble with a flicker of judgment in his eye.

But Dr. Bartos wasn't the only one looking at her. He was sitting at a table with a thin, nervous-looking fellow. Viola frowned at his worn, mismatched clothes and the unkempt stubble on his face, wondering why Dr. Bartos would be sitting with someone like that.

"Hello, Dr. Bartos," she said cheerily. "I didn't expect to see you here."

"I was not expecting to see you, either. Where are you off to?"

Dr. Bartos' eyes flickered with excitement. He lowered his voice and told her, "Hamunaptra."

Viola smiled politely, glancing at Dr. Bartos' companion uneasily again.

"And where might you be going, Miss Chamberlain?"

She turned her attention back to him quickly. "Aswan. I have family there. And it's nearly the holidays - "

Are you here unchaperoned?"

Viola's lips twitched with a nervous smile. She didn't like the way his companion smirked when she nodded her head.

Dr. Bartos let out a sigh. "I will not understand this generation. Don't you girls know you are asking for trouble?"

Viola frowned; she was surprised to hear such talk from a man as pleasant as him, but when she met his eyes she only saw a sweet old man's worry, and she couldn't find it in her to hold it against him. He stood up and pulled out a chair at their table.

"Please sit," he said.

Viola didn't want to sit anywhere near the man Dr. Bartos had with him. "I was going to get a drink - "

"I will get one for you," he said. "You tell me what it is you want."

Not seeing any way out of it, she took the seat he offered with a polite smile. She supposed she could make her leave gracefully enough in a little bit. Besides, Dr. Bartos was pleasant company, and it wouldn't kill her to sit and have a drink with him and his...friend...?

"This is Mr. Gabor," Dr. Bartos said. "He is a Hungarian like myself! And he is taking me to Hamunaptra."

Viola reluctantly glanced across the table and offered Mr. Gabor a cool smile. "It's a pleasure."

Mr. Gabor smirked in a way that suggested the most sordid little sins. "Oh. The pleasure is all mine."

"What will you have, Miss Chamberlain?" Dr. Bartos asked.

"Oh - um, just some gin and olive juice."

Mr. Gabor snickered. "Don't you mean a martini, dirty?"

Viola didn't quite look at him, giving a dismissive wave of her hand. "Oh, every time I order a martini, they use too much vermouth. I must look like a vermouth girl to every bartender on the planet, which is a shame because it's so ghastly."

"Gin and olive juice," Dr. Bartos repeated carefully, as if he'd never heard of such a combination before. He glanced to his companion. "Another vodka for you, Mr. Gabor?"

The younger man nodded his head, a grim smile on his face as Dr. Bartos lumbered away. Viola smoked her cigarette and pretended to be immersed in the sunset.

"What is your name?" Mr. Gabor asked. She had been aware all the while that his eyes were on her.

She sucked in a little breath. "Miss Chamberlain will do."

"But what is your _name?"_

Viola frowned at his whine of a voice, and flitted a glance at him haughtily. He had an obnoxious, weaselly grin on his face. The kind that told her he wasn't going to leave her along until she told him her name.

"It's Viola," she said, and added with a pointed look, "but I _prefer_ Miss Chamberlain."

Mr. Gabor could barely hold back a snort. "From the likes of me, eh?"

"Yes, from the likes of you."

He leaned forward, looking at her with wide, pathetic eyes. "And what is so bad about me? I am only a poor, desperate man, trying to earn a bit of money for my family..."

Viola's eyebrows rose skeptically. "For your family? Tell me, does your wife know you ogle other women the way you've been ogling me?"

Mr. Gabor balked in perplexity. "'Ogle'? What is this 'ogle'? What does that mean?"

"It means the way you're looking at me right now," she snapped impatiently. "Like you're trying to picture me without my clothes on."

He laughed aloud, glancing past her at Dr. Bartos, weaving his way through the oncoming evening crowd with their drinks. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye and told her, "Oh, Miss Chamberlain, I am not _trying_ to picture you without your clothes on..."

Viola had her mouth open to retort, but Dr. Bartos made it to the table just then. He put drinks down in front of each of them and lumbered back into his seat, breathing heavily. He reached into his pocket for a handkerchief to dab at his face.

"It is getting cooler," he said, "but once you get among all of those people, it is quite hot."

Mr. Gabor nodded solemnly. "There is no relief in the desert."

"Quite right, Beni," Dr. Bartos said. "Oh, forgive me, Mr. Gabor. Or Beni? Which do you prefer?"

"I prefer what you prefer, _barat'm."_

"I prefer Beni," Dr. Bartos said. "I prefer all people by their first names, but I do not like to be...how is it said, Miss Chamberlain? Presuming?"

"Presumptive," Viola said, taking a sip from her drink.

"Ah. There it is. I do not like to be presumptive." He took a strong gulp of whiskey and sighed. "Now, Miss Chamberlain, my Hungarian brother and I were just discussing our families. Did you know that we are both men of women?"

Viola blinked, a polite smile on her face because she wasn't entirely certain what he meant. "Oh?"

"Yes!" Dr. Bartos told her. "We both have all daughters. And, of course, our wives...so we are men of women. We are always outnumbered. But I will always say, if I must be outnumbered, it is better to be outnumbered by women!"

The three of them laughed, and despite her irritation with Beni, Viola was starting to feel her tensions ease as she listened to Dr. Bartos.

"But why is it better?" Viola asked playfully.

Dr. Bartos grinned. "Let me tell you. Women are, eh...very smart...and very clean. You put a lot of men in a place together to live, and it is chaos. No. It is _anarchy_. Everyone wants to be the boss. But women...Eh, women squabble about this and they squabble about that, but there is order in the house. The meal is cooked, the house is clean, and...eh, there is order, no?"

Viola laughed and shrugged her shoulders. "I suppose."

He looked at her very seriously and held up a finger. "Women take care of things. That is the truth."

She smiled at him because she wasn't really sure how to respond, and he was looking at her so intently. After a moment, he picked up his drink and sighed. "If not for women, men would all starve to death arguing philosophy," he said, and took a gulp. He shifted his weight in his seat, and glanced up at Beni as if he just remembered he was there. "But what were we saying before? I am a professor, we get so easily side-tracked...Ah! I was asking about your daughter, the one with the sickness. What is her name?"

Beni's mouth moved with a mean little expression for a moment before he feigned melancholy again.

"Viola," he said sorrowfully.

Viola's eyes widened, and she sat up in her seat, ready to chide him.

"No!" Dr. Bartos exclaimed in surprise and wonder, looking between the two of them. "Beni, _Miss Chamberlain's_ name is Viola! It is fate, all of us being here together. God brings people together in the strangest of circumstances."

Beni nodded in solemn agreement, and Viola glared at him. He met her gaze happily, a smirk glinting in his eyes as he raised his vodka to his lips. Viola shook her head. She couldn't help but hate this sarcastic, pathetic little man - and she simply couldn't believe that someone as intelligent as Dr. Bartos had been completely taken in by him.

Breathing an impatient sigh, Viola finished off her gin and told them she was going to go get some air near the rail. Dr. Bartos was reluctant to let her leave, and made her promise several times to be careful, but at last she escaped. She stalked up to the bar and ordered another gin with olive juice, too frustrated to pay much attention to the men who might have bought her the drink had she offered them a smile. She told the bartender to keep a tab for her and she ripped the glass out of his hands without a thank you.

Who was this Beni Gabor, anyway? What kind of con was he running, making up a sick daughter with her name? Viola would bet anything he didn't even have a family. He probably just mirrored whatever situation his "clients" were in, just to seem more sympathetic. God knew a little worm like him needed it. There wasn't a single thing likable about him - not a thing. She just hoped Dr. Bartos wasn't paying him too much; there was no way a man like that knew the location of Hamunaptra (_if_ it actually existed) or anywhere else important.

She hated to admit it, but perhaps her uncle was right; perhaps Dr. Bartos was a fool to be a man of faith. At the very least, he was a fool for putting his faith in Beni Gabor.

Viola had just made it to the rail of the barge before realizing that she'd already downed her drink. With a frustrated sigh, she whirled around and headed back to the bar for another. She had to forget about that horrible man. He was going to ruin her whole evening.

A crowd had gathered around the bar, and Viola let out an impatient huff when she realized she wasn't going to be reaching the counter any time soon. She wondered why they didn't hire another barkeep; surely by now these barge owners knew the importance of keeping every passenger pleasantly sloshed. The cabins weren't _that_ great, after all -

"Another gin and olive juice?"

The sound of that taunting whine made her grimace. She turned to see Beni there beside her, and couldn't help but notice that he was shoving something into his pocket. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously, and she gave herself a quick check to make sure he hadn't taken anything off of her.

"Did you just take something from me?" she demanded. She hadn't noticed anything out of place, but she'd also had two drinks on an empty stomach.

Beni shook his head, his eyes shifting around nervously.

Viola studied him with her severest glare. "If anything is missing, I'm going to report it first thing in the morning."

"I did not take anything from you," he retorted.

"You'd better not have."

Beni scoffed. "Like you would miss it, anyway. Anyone can see you have too much money."

Viola rolled her eyes. "Isn't that just typical of a thief..."

"I am not a thief," he told her, crossing his arms over his chest. "I am a desert guide."

"To a place that doesn't even exist."

Beni turned and stared at her with grave eyes. "Hamunaptra exists."

But Viola waved him off with a half-lidded expression. "That might work with gullible tourists, but my whole family studies Egypt _ad exhaustium_. And none of them buy into this silly Hamunaptra nonsense."

Beni raised his eyebrows sarcastically and snorted. "Well. That is _most_ impressive."

Viola ignored him and stood up on her toes, but if anything, the crowd had gotten worse. She let out a sigh and grumbled, "Why is it so ungodly slow?"

Beni shrugged and lit himself a cigarette.

"You should go up and see what's taking so long," she told him after a second attempt to scope out the bar failed.

Beni scoffed and said in his whining voice, "Why should I go up to the bar? _You_ should go up. They will let you right up to the front dressed like that. I will just get shoved out of the way..."

Viola turned and looked at him irritably. "It's the polite thing to do."

"How?" he retorted, giving her the suspicious edge of his glare. "We are not together. You are getting your drink; I am getting my drink. I am not going to make my way to the counter only to get elbowed and shoved around just so you can drink your stupid gin and olive juice. Nobody will elbow you. _You_ should go."

"I'm not going up there."

"Then you are just going to have to wait like _everybody_ else," he told her darkly. He muttered to himself in Hungarian; had Viola been able to see her own expression, she would have been reminded immediately of her Uncle Allen when Dr. Bartos called him a "grumpy old man."

"What are _you_ mumbling about?"

Beni turned and looked at her incredulously. "What do you care?"

"You know, it's dreadfully rude to talk in another language in front of people. It makes them think you're talking about them."

"I _was_ talking about you."

Viola's eyes widened, and her mouth hung open in surprise. He only smirked back smugly.

"Well don't do that!" she said at last, crossing her arms over her chest in exasperation. "It isn't fair."

Beni let out a loud, dismissive snort. "Please. Your stupid headband costs more than my entire apartment building and I am supposed to be fair to you?"

Viola reached a hand up to the Tiffany's hairpiece and touched it thoughtfully. She glanced back at the bar, refusing to look at him for a moment. She heard him breathe out a trail of smoke, and shot him a suspicious look out of the corner of her eye.

"So what were you saying about me?" she asked.

She still wouldn't turn at look at him, but she was sure he had a smirk on his face.

"I said you are spoiled and lazy," he told her with a certain kind of satisfaction. "And even in that dress, I would not screw you if you begged me."

Viola let out a snort, turning to stare down her nose at him. "Why would I _ever_ beg you to sleep with me? I can have any man I want - any man at all. You're a perfect worm and I'd rather die than let you lay a finger on me."

But he pretended like he never heard her at all. He told her quite seriously, "Not even if you _begged."_


	19. Begging

_Disclaimer: The characters of _The Mummy_ are the property of Universal Studios__. _

* * *

**1925**

* * *

**Begging**

_November 18, 1925_

"Gad - Warden Hassan, please. I'm begging you."

The warden let out an impatient sigh, glaring across the desk at the dirty, bruised man seated before him. Basim Abdul was a regular in his prison, but unlike Beni (or even Izzy), he lacked the clever aptitude to make himself useful to Gad. He could only ever think of one thing to offer, and that was his sister. And while the woman was lovely enough, Gad had needs beyond the carnal. Izzy always had dirt on some other lowlife who was evading capture, and Beni could usually offer up a necessary service, like using his pickpocket fingers to plant evidence on some poor sod. But Basim was chronically unclever - a trait that might have made him pitiable to someone other than Gad.

Basim had only been in prison a week this time, and already he was begging for a shorter sentence. He was the sort of man other prisoners liked to pick on, and since he was so dimwitted, he almost never talked his way out of a beating. So Gad was far from surprised to see him in such a state, though Basim was admittedly worse than ever before (at least in Gad's recent memory). He cowered in his chair, doubled over from the pain of having been kicked repeatedly in the gut, and both of his eyes were blackened (though he could still see out of one). He kept touching his swollen jaw with trembling fingers, and he had dried blood around his nose that he probably didn't realize was still there.

"He's trying to kill me," Basim whimpered.

Gad sighed again, telling him in a bored tone, "No one is trying to kill you, Basim."

"He is!" Basim insisted, his voice cracking. "He would have snapped my neck if O'Connell had not stopped him - "

The warden raised his eyebrows incredulously. "We have been over this so many times, my friend. No one wants to kill you. You are just an easy target."

Basim shook his head, though the mere action seemed to pain him. He put his bludgeoned face in his hands and stifled a sob.

"Please call my sister," he said quietly.

Gad leaned back in his chair. "I really do not have time for your sister today."

"Maybe she has some money."

"Your sister never has money. I do not mind that she never has money - but I don't have time for her today."

Basim sniffed. His whole body started trembling. "Don't make me go back there. I cannot go back there."

"Come now, my friend," Gad said with feigned gentleness. "Jacques is in the hole for the rest of the day. You have nothing to be afraid of - "

"But what about tomorrow?" he asked in a high, desperate voice.

The warden sighed. "Basim?"

Reluctantly, he looked up with his frightened, pitiable face.

"You have broken the law. You took that American's wallet, and you must do your time for this grievous sin."

"But - "

Gad held up a finger and wagged it at him chidingly. "This is the way we keep order in the world. Eh? This is the way."

Basim was on the verge of tears again. "He will kill me...I know he will kill me..."

"No one is going to kill you, Basim."

He scoffed bitterly. The warden glanced at his pocket watch.

"Will you call my sister, at least?" he asked plaintively. "She is still at work now - they have a telephone there - "

Gad stared at him in half-lidded impatience, but nodded his head. "If it will get you out of my office - then _yes,_ I will call your sister. But unless she has money, _you_ are staying right here."

Basim nodded his head dismally. The warden flitted his gaze to the guard by the door, and nodded his head obviously. The guard crossed over to Basim's chair and helped him to his feet on shaking legs. Gad tried not to roll his eyes as he limped away, and picked up the telephone. He might as well get this over with before Basim was whining in his office again.

It had been like this all week. Gad didn't know what Jacques' particular beef with Basim was; the man wouldn't answer him when he asked what brought on the incidents, but he accepted his punishment in the hole without a fuss, and Gad didn't really care enough to press him further.

Someone picked up at the restaurant.

"Yes. Is, uh...em...uh...Is Miss Abdul there?"

Damned if he could remember her name.

"This is Rashida."

Ah! But of course. Rashida. She _looked_ like a Rashida...

Gad told her about the situation with her brother and she let out an impatient sigh. From the tone of her voice and her snapped responses, he really didn't think she'd bother coming to the prison at all. He hung up the phone and forgot about her and her pathetic brother, and went about his business. And when he was told that afternoon that he had a visitor, he thought it might be Meela coming to collect her weekly payment.

Instead, it was Rashida.

She was an Egyptian beauty with dark, regal features - high cheekbones, a proud nose, catlike eyes - and Gad enjoyed the certain kind of satisfaction that always came with bedding a woman so much more attractive than he was. Beyond that business, though, he didn't particularly like the woman. She was cold and resentful, and she always eyed him like dirt between tiles. A woman like her didn't have any business being so high and mighty around him. She opened her legs the same as any common whore, and all for a brother who was hardly worth protecting. The warden didn't have any patience for a woman so unaware of her place.

"Warden Hassan," she said coolly. "What is this trouble with my brother?"

Gad shrugged his shoulders. "He thinks someone is trying to kill him."

Rashida raised an eyebrow. _"Is_ someone trying to kill him?"

The warden let out a bored sigh, staring up at her emphatically. "These men are like wild dogs. Everyone is always trying to kill everybody else."

She looked back at him, her mouth set in a skeptical frown. After a moment of silence, she said, "I'd like to see him."

So Gad turned to the guard at the door and told him to bring Basim in. He knew how it would be before the door even opened and Basim stumbled in. He knew how she would cry - how she'd rush to him and touch his face, and how he'd start crying, too. Gad hated these sorts of scenes. Here she had come, fully prepared to let her brother rot with his alleged killer. But now that she'd laid eyes on his pathetic face, all of that good sense was forgotten. Basim was a sad story, certainly, with his bruises and uncontrollable shaking, but what was the point in getting him out of prison today? He would steal another wallet tomorrow and be back in by the day after.

"He is trying to kill me...I know he is trying to kill me..."

"But why, Basim?"

"I don't know...I don't know...But look at me, Rashida. He is trying to kill me..."

She started whispering to him about something...a tribe, and a marriage, perhaps? Gad could have sworn he heard the word "pardon," but he couldn't be sure. He also didn't entirely care.

After a while Rashida straightened, and turned to look at Gad. He'd already decided how much money he would ask for Basim's release, and he was about to just tell her before she even had the opportunity to ask. But the words that came out of her mouth were quite different from what he was anticipating:

"Let me speak to the man who did this."


	20. Confess

_Author's Note: Twenty chapters? Nooo, this can't be 20 chapters l__ong already. That's just psychotic. _

_Disclaimer: The characters of _The Mummy_ are the property of Universal Studios__. _

* * *

**1925**

* * *

**Confess**

_November 18, 1925_

Rashida stared into the grim darkness of the cell, her eyes flashing with contempt at this man - this monster - who had done such damage to Basim. She crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head at him, disgusted and perplexed. But he met her glare with no trouble at all; with a look that was nearly bored.

"Why are you trying to kill my brother?" she demanded. "What has he done to you?"

The man rose his eyebrows, his big shoulders rising and falling in a stiff shrug. "I do not know who your brother is."

Rashida sucked in a breath and stepped right up to the bars of the cell. "My brother, Basim Abdul! The man you have beat senseless every day!"

But the prisoner's stony expression was unmoved. His eyes lazed to the wall across from him. Rashida's entire body tensed.

"What is your name?" she demanded.

"Jacques Clemons."

"And why are you here?"

He heaved a sigh. "This time? For breaking the law."

Rashida's eyes narrowed, and he chuckled to himself.

"Which law?"

Jacques took a deep breath and pulled himself to his feet. He crossed the cramped space of the cell and stood just in front of her, staring down with his hard, cold eyes. His expression was as placid as ever, but she couldn't help taking half a step backwards, anyway.

"Your quarrel is not with me," he told her. "There is a price on your brother's head. It has been promised to me."

Rashida frowned. "Who came to you?"

Jacques blinked. "I do not know his name."

Her eyes widened, and her mouth gaped for a moment of utter disbelief. She finally managed to demand, "You will kill a man for a complete stranger?"

"I will kill a stranger for seven hundred pounds in gold."

Rashida shook her head. "But who would pay so much for my brother's death? He is only a thief - and a bad one, at that - "

Jacques shrugged again, making his way back to the place he had been sitting on the floor. "Someone wants him dead."

"Describe the man."

He looked up at her curiously, but her eyes were persistent and anxious. "Please. If there is anything I can do to stop this..."

Jacques likely couldn't help the scoff that escaped his lips, and Rashida got the distinct impression that he only told her because he didn't believe there was anything she could do to intervene:

"He was a man in black robes. Tattoos on his face."

Rashida stared at him in shock. She fumbled for the words, but not a single one made it to her lips. She looked away and stared at the wall, her anger building like steam from a boiling pot. One name came to mind, ringing like a disconcerted melody between her ears. She would have felt sick if it weren't for her rage. How dare he? His name reverberated through her entire body again, _Omar Qadir_. How dare he defy Ardeth and try to have her brother killed? _Omar Qadir._ How dare he pay a criminal instead of standing before Basim like a man and doing it himself?

She swallowed hard and was barely able to meet Jacques' eyes. She mumbled a, "Thank you," before making her way out of the prison.

All the while that same detestable name throbbed behind her ears like a headache. _Omar Qadir. Omar Qadir has done this._

But far away from Cairo Prison, across the expanse of the Sahara, the man who had actually made such a deal with Jacques Clemons stood in the middle of a meeting tent, surrounded on all sides by the elders of the Med-Jai tribe. He knew that beyond the dark walls of coarse cloth, women and young men were gathered as well, desperate to hear what might be happening within. He stood tall and proud before the eyes of his father, the dark and severe old man all knew as Ayman Bay.

Ardeth stared back into his father's deep brown eyes - the very eyes he'd inherited - and took a breath. He knew he was coming before the judgment of the entire council, but their decision was meaningless to Ardeth in the face of his father. Whether he was spared or condemned mattered very little when his father was looking him over like that, his glare scraping him up and down like he was whetting a knife.

Ardeth tried to swallow without appearing too nervous, and continued to gaze back at his father, determined not to flinch under such grim scrutiny. The whispers had been building for a while around them, ever since Ardeth had made his statements. The whispers had been building, and the cruel, suspicious glances had become increasingly more furious.

_I come before you all as a sinner seeking retribution. _

At first their eyes had danced with amusement, because what sin could Ayman's perfect eldest son possibly have committed? What annoying little trifle had he dragged them all into a council to hear?

_I must confess that several months ago, I fell before temptation. I laid with my betrothed, Rashida Abdul. The weight of this sin has been upon my shoulders for too much time, and it is crushing me beneath it._

They didn't think he looked so crushed for a man who had committed one of the gravest sins. The smiles slipped from their faces, and their brows furrowed, and the whispers started.

_What is worse, in our sin Allah saw fit to conceive a child in Rashida's womb. I have only just learned that I am the father of her baby - a son._

Ardeth had watched, his entire body clenching with pain, as his father's expression hardened into a stony mask. He could only imagine what shock and anger had been pulsing through the man; what terrible, disappointed thoughts swirled about in his head.

_I know that I am in no position to ask even a crumb from your table, but I humbly beg you this: that you allow me to take Rashida as my wife, to right our grievous wrong, and to dignify my son - the rightful heir of the Med-Jai caliphate - with my name._

Ardeth didn't know how many minutes had past since he finished his statement. But an agonizing eternity passed while he waited for his father to speak. He watched his father's lips, just waiting...waiting for them to part and some word to come out of his mouth. And though their whispers buzzed like locusts all about them, Ardeth knew the rest of the council was waiting for the word of Ayman, too, before they dared to speak.

Ardeth saw his father's throat jerk with a swallow, and he sat up a little, and his eyebrows rose, and at last he said:

"You mean to tell me, Ardeth Bay, my oldest and most precious son, that you have done this heinous thing in the eyes of Allah?"

"Yes, Father."

Ayman's eyes narrowed. "You dare to call me father with the same breath you admit this despicable act?"

Ardeth glanced down quickly. He heard his father sigh, and felt his furious gaze slip off of him like a blanket, leaving him cold and exposed. His father looked about the council and asked with a kind of impatience:

"What is to be done with a man such as this?"

"Were it anyone else's son, we would not be entertaining any discussion," a bitter voice immediately piped up. Ardeth glanced over at the man, into the thin, pointed face of Omar Qadir. He refused to wince under the man's hawkish glare.

Omar Qadir had been throwing him sharp looks for some time now, ever since Ardeth allowed Basim Abdul to go free for his treachery. It was Omar's son who died as a result of Basim's cowardice. He wasn't likely to forget it any time soon.

"Ah, but it is _not_ anyone else's son," came another voice; Ardeth was admittedly relieved to hear the voice of Musad, who had always been a friend to him. "This is the son of Ayman Bay, the heir to the caliphate. And not only are we discussing the son of Ayman, but now also the grandson of Ayman. That is two caliphate heirs."

Omar's eyes narrowed. "The child is a bastard, born out of a banished woman. He is no heir."

"Rashida was not banished," Ardeth spoke up, looking at his father pleadingly. "The council agreed that the sins of her brother would not touch her shoulders - "

"And yet she happily took them on," Omar said. "When she left the tribe, she chose her brother's shame over the forgiving eye of her people. She is a disgrace to the Med-Jai and to herself. And I will not have her bastard son reigning over the children of my line - "

"Omar," Musad started to say.

"No man with Abdul blood is fit for the caliphate!" Omar said loudly. "Particularly not one born of boyish lust and unrestraint."

Ardeth sucked in a breath and turned away from his father to face Omar. "Sir - council - I do not ask you to accept my son as an heir. Only to allow me to marry his mother and give him my name - "

"That makes him an heir," Omar reminded darkly. "That is what an heir is, and I will not allow it."

They stared at each other in the silence, and Ardeth gaped helplessly for something to say. After a moment, Musad spoke up in his calm, even way:

"Perhaps we might seek a compromise," he said, glancing between Omar and Ayman. "Omar does not want a bastard in line for the caliphate, and his concerns are reasonable. Ardeth wants to give his son his name, and that, too, is reasonable...Perhaps it would please Omar if Ardeth first wed another girl - a young virgin of virtue and repute - one not unlike his eldest daughter, Laila - and allowed this girl the opportunity to bear a legitimate son to act as heir to the caliphate. Ardeth could then marry Rashida and spare his son shame."

The room fell very quiet, and Ardeth met Musad's eyes gratefully for a moment before turning his attention to his father. Ayman stroked his white beard thoughtfully, glancing across the room at Omar with a contemplative frown.

"What say you to this, Omar Qadir?"

Omar stared back at him, his mouth twisting. After a moment that lasted forever, he said, "I could be persuaded to such a compromise...but if I am to look away while a fornicator becomes caliph, and give him my eldest daughter - who has sinned with_ no_ man - as a wife, then I must believe he has suffered appropriately for his sins."

Ardeth glanced at his father, but Ayman would not look away from Omar. He raised his eyebrows. "Truly, such detestable actions ought to be punished. My son is not exempt from the wrath of Allah, who in his great mercy demands only one hundred lashes for the defilement of his most holy and perfect law."

Onar met his gaze evenly. "This mercy is extended to ordinary men, but - as we have previously established - being your son, Ardeth is _extra_ordinary. Taking his position into consideration, I must expect that he would take no less than _two hundred_ lashes for such lewd and vile behavior. After all, an ordinary man betrays only himself and Allah. Ardeth has betrayed his people - all of his future subjects - as well."

Ayman took a breath, but his expression was otherwise unmoved. "A most astute point." He turned and looked at his son, and for the first time Ardeth was able to see a flicker of the overwhelming pain he had caused his father. Ayman looked directly into his eyes and told him, "So it shall be done."

But Omar was not finished. "And Rashida as well."

Ardeth whirled around, glaring into the other man's cruel, thin face. "Allah only asks for one hundred lashes!"

"But as your future wife - "

"Then I will take hers!" Ardeth shouted fiercely. His words rang in the stunned silence, and surely could be heard outside of the meeting tent.

Omar's eyes flashed. "You cannot right her sins in the eyes of Allah for her."

"This is hardly about righting sins before Allah," Ardeth snapped back before he could stop himself. "This is about righting sins before you. What more can be done before you feel the death of your son has been avenged? You will beat the sister of Basim Abdul with twice of Allah's wrath? Give me her lashes! It was I that let Basim Abdul go free!"

Omar shook his head, his mouth set in a grim line. "Your Abdul whore deserves to be stoned. Two hundred lashes is nothing short of gracious for a woman who will be brought back into the fold of her people as an honored wife of the caliph, with a bastard son in her arms and a coward brother who still dares to breathe the same air as my son's widow and children."

Ardeth gazed back at him steadily, the fire in his dark eyes burning down to humility. He took a breath, and spoke in a soft, pleading voice:

"Omar, if I bring you the head of Basim Abdul, will you let me take her lashes?"

Omar frowned, confusion for the first time disrupting his calculating glare. He stared at Ardeth with something like suspicion, scratching the gray hairs of his goatee thoughtfully.

"You would bring me the head of the traitor?"

"I would do anything," Ardeth told him earnestly. "I would do anything to spare her pain."

"You cannot take her punishment before Allah," Ayman's voice cut in, cool and sure. Ardeth turned and looked at him with desperate eyes, but his father's expression was unmoved. "She must receive the hundred lashes. But...if it satisfies Omar, you may take the other hundred he has asked in exchange for Basim's head."

Omar met Ayman's eyes, and nodded. Ardeth let out a long, shaking sigh.

"It is settled, then," Ayman pronounced. "Ardeth will receive his rightful punishment before Allah, and he will be wed to Laila Qadir. When she has produced a son, he is free to marry Rashida Abdul."

The men all around Ardeth shuffled to their feet, murmuring together and passing him with grim and judgmental eyes. He felt the prick of Omar's glare like sharp, wheedling knife, but he met his gaze just the same. Taking a breath, he strode over to his father.

"My son," Ayman muttered evenly, looking him over with an irritated expression. Ardeth met his eyes testily.

"Who is the leader of the council, you or Omar Qadir?"

Ayman only raised his eyebrows. "Omar, at your insistence. Any interventions I might have made would have looked like favoritism in the eyes of the council. You tied my hands, and frankly, you might have received much worse."

Ardeth shook his head, staring down at the floor bitterly. "He would have had Rashida take two hundred lashes."

"But she is not," Ayman said, cold and even. "Be grateful you are so beloved by the council that she would be allowed back into the tribe at all."

Ardeth closed his eyes with a wince, determined to shove away the terrible image of Rashida enduring the cruel bite of a whip over, and over, and over again.

"You are my most precious son," Ayman said. "And you have brought me nothing but joy, until this very day."

Ardeth glanced up, unable to hide the hurt of his father's words. But Ayman only sighed, putting a weary hand on his shoulder.

"It is so unlike you," he said, his mouth twitching with a disappointed expression. "Lust is the sin of weaker men."


	21. Debt

_Disclaimer: The characters of _The Mummy_ are the property of Universal Studios__. _

* * *

**1925**

* * *

**Debt**

_November 18, 1925_

Meela Nais had long been working the sin of lust to her advantage on weak men. It came perfectly natural to her, as natural as walking - which, as it turned out, was one of many tools in her arsenal that she could use to distract and manipulate. Meela was alarmingly self-aware, and had been since an age when most girls were still feeling awkward and uncomfortable in their own bodies. She knew she had beauty of a dangerous nature - catlike eyes and almost cruel way of smirking when she smiled; the kind of beauty certain men longed to possess because they knew it intimidated other men, and for the better part of her young life, Meela had put her looks to work against the most arrogant and powerful men in Cairo's underworld. She seduced the most volatile buffoons, the ones that thought they needed a girl like Meela to remind everyone else just how _very_ masculine they were. And when those buffoons got themselves killed in a sudden outburst of anger, in another egotistic show of dumb bravado, Meela stayed. She trapped the next buffoon in her web, and gained a little more power...and a little more...

She quickly found that criminals were dim-witted breed, and cripplingly insecure. Even the occasional smart or cool-tempered one fell to his lust eventually, though. Men were weak, vain little creatures as far as Meela was concerned; even the biggest brute with the biggest fists needed to be told at the end of the day that he was a_ man_ - that he was the _manliest_ man of them all. It didn't matter who he had killed or what he controlled - in the quiet dark of a bedroom, he sought her approval and affirmation like an eager dog.

That was how Meela came to control Cairo, from the inside out. The volatile and violent nature of criminals allowed her to accomplish it in very little time, all things considered. A few years. In only a few years, she'd consolidated power at the very top, allowing the smaller gangs to maintain autonomy and squabble amongst each other; it was good business. It kept the police busy with their affairs, and they were an endless stream of revenue, all of them forced to kick back to someone who had to kick back to someone else, who eventually had to kick back to Meela. The Cairo underworld was like a messy house, and being a woman, Meela knew everything there was to know about straightening up; about bringing order to the chaos.

The people below her put on a show of resenting her, like a gaggle of rebellious pubescent boys. But at the end of the day, when they went back to their safe, expensive homes and ate food bought from the blood money skimmed off of Cairo's streets, they shut their mouths. The show was over, and they knew who she was, truly. They resented her no more than they resented their own mothers.

But even if she _was_ the mother of the underworld, she continued to garner unsolicited and unwanted male attention, especially from tourists who only saw a beautiful, exotic conquest not unlike the country of Egypt itself. They wanted to take her just to tell everyone they'd had her. And when they saw her, often in Western dresses, with her hair uncovered, they thought to themselves, _This one I can have. _There was no shortage of men who tried.

Usually Meela could manage on her own. She spoke excellent English and she had her cold and frightening beauty on her side, and she could crush a man's ego like a grape between her fingers. But on rare occasions - like last week - she found herself in the debt of a stranger (often male) who happened to have the common decency to step in when it became clear she was in over her head. She'd recently learned that such a stranger had spent the last week in prison for stepping in when a non-particular British tourist wasn't getting the hint.

Meela hadn't maintained her position at the top without a certain level of graciousness, and for that reason, she found herself at Cairo Prison, standing in front of Warden Hassan's desk. His hands were fumbling about with papers and other nonsense until she told him:

"This isn't about your debt."

Gad stopped abruptly and offered her a guilty smile before folding his hands complacently on the desk.

"Oh? Then to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"

"You have a prisoner," she said. "Handsome, American fellow. I believe the name is O'Connell."

The warden frowned thoughtfully and rubbed the stubble on his chin. "Let me check..."

Meela let out an impatient sigh. "You have him. I'd like him released. I'm willing to forego your payment this week in exchange for it."

Gad's eyes brightened, and he bobbled his head. "Ah, yes of course! Mr. O'Connell. He will be quite pleased to hear it. If you would kindly wait here, I will go and get him for you - "

But Meela held up a hand. "I don't want to see him. I don't even want him to know I was the one who had him released."

Gad's brow furrowed in curiosity, and he might have asked her why, but the hard edge of her glare made him snap his mouth shut. He assured her that the thing would be done, and she strode out of his office without another word. Gad watched her leave, a kind of grim distaste settling into his mouth now that she was gone. He heaved a sigh and drew up the paperwork for O'Connell's release, and by lunch time, everything was settled. He sent a guard for the man who had inexplicably earned the favor of Meela Nais, and lit a half-used cigar while he waited for the confused American to be brought into his office.

O'Connell looked considerably worse for wear, dirty and unshaven - several articles of clothing utterly ruined. The warden could barely hide his delight; he couldn't help but get a certain kind of satisfaction from seeing the toll his prison took. He imagined it was justice.

"Ah! Mr. O'Connell, good afternoon."

O'Connell frowned curiously, and stood in the middle of the room with a kind of uneasiness about his posture. "Yeah. Hey."

"It seems that good fortune has smiled on you, my friend," Gad told him. "You are to be released today."

O'Connell's brow only furrowed more. "Really?"

The warden nodded.

"Why?"

Gad looked up at him and could only offer a helpless shrug. "I am not at liberty to say..."

O'Connell scoffed, his eyes wandering about the room and settling on his hands, or perhaps only the handcuffs.

"Look..." he said slowly. "It's not that I don't wanna be released, 'cause I do - "

Gad's eyebrows rose. "But _what?"_

O'Connell met his eyes evenly. "There's a guy in here - a friend of mine - who's gonna get killed if I leave."

The warden let out a long sigh. "I'm so sorry, Mr. O'Connell, but I have no choice. I will be found in no small amount of trouble if..._certain parties_ find out you were not released."

The prisoner nodded his head, his mouth twitching with unnamed emotions, some strange mixture of relief and worry, or something like it. At last he shrugged his shoulders and said.

"Alright. Just..."

Gad met his eyes, startled and needlessly annoyed by their intensity.

"Jacques _is_ trying to kill Basim," he said. "I walked in on the fight. I saw what was happening. It's not all in Basim's head."

The warden raised his eyebrows and took the cigar out of his mouth. He looked at O'Connell with a kind of righteous airiness that didn't suit a man of his nature. "Then perhaps Basim will make the choice to live on the right side of the law when he is released."

_"If_ he is released, you mean," O'Connell muttered dryly.

Gad shrugged, and glanced past O'Connell's irritated gaze to the guard. For a moment, the American prisoner looked like he might put up more of an argument, but Gad watched the words melt on his tongue as the handcuffs were unlocked from his wrists. He rubbed them absently, and reached up to scratch the back of his neck.

"Go find yourself some lunch, O'Connell," the warden told him with a grim smile. "Basim is a grown man; he will handle himself."

O'Connell let out a long sigh, a conflicted expression coming over his face. At last he nodded his head, though his eyes were still heavy with regret. He looked hard at the warden.

"Alright," he said. "But if Basim dies, it's on your hands. I told you what was going on."

Gad scoffed and took a puff from his cigar. "Mr. O'Connell, I would gladly take on the death of such criminal lowlife scum as your friend Basim."


	22. Smug

_Author's Note: **So, you might have noticed the story was suddenly cut by two chapters. Here's why:**_

_In an attempt to get back into the story, I re-read it the other night, and there were two glaringly obvious problems with Chapters 22 and 23 as they stood. Chapter 22 (which is below and revised, and considerably longer than before) was much, much too short for the subject matter. The whole scenario logically failed. Here is a (hopefully) much better version._

_Chapter 23 had a terrible continuity error - so bad that I'm embarrassed I missed it. Those scenes will occur again, just not at this point in the story, and not how they happened before. When I get around to writing and posting Chapter 23, it will be entirely different from "Abysmal," focusing on different characters._

_Disclaimer: The characters of _The Mummy_ are the property of Universal Studios__. _

* * *

**1925**

* * *

**Smug**

_November 19, 1925_

In the belly of a barge, another criminal lowlife scum had begrudgingly made his way to a cabin significantly nicer than his own, and raised a fist to knock on the door. It was only a little after noon and he was skeptical the rich brat in the cabin was even awake; but Dr. Bartos had sent him to see if the charming Miss Chamberlain would be interested in taking her lunch with them, and Beni had no choice but to oblige him.

Well, Beni _could_ have just gone below deck for a few minutes and lied to Dr. Bartos, but he was curious about the expensive cabins, and wouldn't mind knowing just how careless Viola was with all of her jewelry. Even if she wasn't as thoughtless with her valuables as Beni anticipated (or at least hoped), he didn't mind taking the opportunity to annoy her.

He could hear activity inside and gave the door a hard knock. A moment later, the door cracked open and Viola's narrowed eyes glared back at him.

"Good morning!" he said with saccharine charm. "How are you on this fine, sunny day, Viola?"

"It's Miss Chamberlain," she told him tersely. "What are you doing here?"

Beni only grinned, just then noticing that she was only wearing a robe and her hair was set all around with pins.

"Dr. Bartos was wondering if you would like to join us for lunch."

Viola's mouth twisted thoughtfully, eyeing him the entire time. At last she said, "You can tell Dr. Bartos that I'll happily join him for any meal, as long as_ you_ aren't in attendance."

Beni frowned, his eyes widening with woeful innocence. "But what have I done to deserve such scornful treatment?"

Viola huffed an incredulous sigh and shook her head. "Oh, that's rich. Hasn't anyone ever told you that you're a dreadful liar?"

Beni crossed his arms over his chest and glared back at her defensively. "I have done nothing to you. You just do not like me because I am poor. It probably makes you feel guilty, seeing a man in my condition when you go about wearing diamonds..."

Viola sniffed. "You're nothing but a little con artist. Anyone can see that." She paused for a moment, as if debating to say more. But her haughtiness got the better of her. "And what's more, I don't believe for one second that you wouldn't sleep with me."

Beni let out a snort, an amused smirk finding its way into his homely face. "Is that why you do not like me? Because I said I wouldn't sleep with you?"

"You _would_ sleep with me," she told him certainly. "You'd sleep with anybody if she was willing to have you, though I doubt few ever have."

He raised his eyebrows. "For your information, many women have had me happily."

"They've had your _money_ happily, you mean."

Beni's eyes narrowed, and he leaned against the doorframe. "If I am such a lowly, desperate scumbag, what do you care if I wouldn't sleep with you?"

Viola huffed a short, impatient sigh. "Because you _would!_ Obviously, you would."

"Why obviously?"

Her jaw dropped, and she put her hands on her hips. "Oh, please! I'm a hundred times more attractive than you. I'm sure you've never been with a woman who looks like me."

Beni scoffed loudly. "That is only because I like women who look older than twelve."

Viola's eyes widened, and she let out an angry, _"Ooh!"_ before slamming the door shut in his face. A wide, dark grin split his mouth, and he stared at the place where she had been, bemused.

"Does this mean you will not be joining us for lunch?"

She threw back a loud, "HA!" muffled through the door, and Beni shrugged.

"Well if you change your mind, we will be on the deck," he added, trying desperately not to let a mean chuckle escape his throat. He thrust his hands in his pockets and meandered away, but he hadn't gotten far before her door flew open again.

"I won't be changing my mind!" she hurled at his back. Beni stopped and rolled his eyes, turning to look at her evenly.

"Oh, what a shame," he said, false and sarcastic. "We will be missing you desperately."

She slammed the door shut in retort and he scoffed, continuing his stroll down the hallway and back up to the deck. The dining area was crowded with the bustling lunch crowd, and the sun was hot and bright overhead, and Beni had to scan the tables with squinting eyes two or three times before at last catching sight of Dr. Bartos. He'd found a table just barely covered by the awning, and Beni doubted it would do much to ward off the oncoming heat.

"Where is Viola?" Dr. Bartos asked when he dropped into his seat.

Beni shrugged. "She is not coming."

"Well surely she does not mean to dine alone."

Beni didn't say anything and reached for the sweating glass of water that had been waiting at his seat. He hadn't even finished a gulp before Dr. Bartos was out of his chair, distracted and agitated. Beni watched as he shuffled his way out of the dining area and took a turn to go below deck, likely down to Viola's room. He really didn't know why the man was so obsessed with Viola's safety; they were on a barge, and it wasn't like she was helpless. The woman practically had claws.

Oh, she was too spoiled and pampered to _actually_ take care of herself, of course, but the worst thing she might encounter here was a drunk suitor not catching the hint. And Viola was more than capable of handling that.

Still, he wasn't surprised when a few minutes after an appetizer arrived, so did Dr. Bartos and Viola - a sour and begrudging wrinkle in her lip. She refused to look at Beni and took her seat next to Dr. Bartos, immediately busying herself with the menu. Apparently, in spite of her haughty declaration that she wouldn't be taking any more meals with Beni, she lacked the heart to turn Emil Bartos down.

"Ah, Beni, you ordered bruschetta!" Dr. Bartos said happily, pulling off a piece of bread for himself.

Beni eyed Viola with a wicked sort of look on his face. "Miss Chamberlain, would you care for some bruschetta?"

She just glared into her menu and told him, "No. Thank you."

Beni couldn't help his devious grin. "I think I will have the escargot. What are you having, Emil?"

Dr. Bartos shrugged. "Oh, probably just a sandwich...you can eat escargot in this heat?"

"I have never had escargot."

Viola snorted. "It's snails."

Beni grimaced, and he tried to decide if she was lying or not. He glanced down at the menu again. He wasn't a particularly good reader, but he'd recognized the word escargot from his time in France, and he knew numbers well enough. And he was fairly certain no restaurant on earth would charge more for snails than for beef.

"You're hilarious," he said.

She laid her menu flat on the table and stared down her nose at him. "It is. That's what escargot is. It's snails."

"It is not."

"It is._ Escargot_ is the French word for snail."

"I know French."

"Evidently not that well."

Beni's eyes narrowed, and he told her in French, _"I speak it flawlessly. Every Frenchman I have ever met says so."_

_"Well escargot is French for snails. Even perfect idiots know that," _she reached over and took a cool sip of her water. _"And you don't speak it flawlessly. You have a dreadful accent."_

"You_ have a dreadful accent."_

_"I don't. But even if I did, at least I would know the absolute most basic French word imaginable."_

_"Why the hell would anyone ever have to know the French word for snails?"_

_"To order in a French restaurant, obviously."_

_"Why would someone learn French just to eat snails?"_

_"Because they're a delicacy - "_

"Pardon me," Dr. Bartos spoke up, "but I am afraid you have lost me with French. German I can keep up with. I cannot speak it so good, but I can keep up. You have lost me with French."

Viola offered him a tight-lipped smile and apologized. Beni just crossed his arms over his chest.

"I am ordering the escargot."

She just raised her eyebrows. "What do I care if you want to eat snails?"

"It is_ not_ snails. You are trying to trick me."

Dr. Bartos frowned. "I believe it_ is_ snails, Beni." He looked up at Viola for confirmation. "I am thinking of the right thing? With the butter and the wine and the cheese?"

Viola nodded. "I've never had it with cheese before, but they'd go nicely with a cheese sauce."

Beni let out a groan and picked up his menu again. He wasn't about to eat snails, even if they _were_ a delicacy. When the waiter came back around, he just ordered a sandwich, the thought of which put him in a dismal mood. With Dr. Bartos footing the bill, he could have anything he pleased, and he tried to stay away from meals he could have any other time. So he also ordered a vodka even though Dr. Bartos eyed him disapprovingly for it.

He couldn't remain so disapproving, though - Viola ordered a drink, too. With a sigh, Dr. Bartos ordered a coffee.

Viola and Beni spent most of the meal in silence, listening to Dr. Bartos jabber on about Hamunaptra. Viola was clearly resisting the urge to roll her eyes at the notion that Hamunaptra really was out there, but she kept a placid smile on her face and nodded enthusiastically now and then while she picked at a salad and gulped at her whiskey. She'd finished two before lunch was even over. Beni noticed.

Dr. Bartos proposed dessert but Viola (annoyingly) turned him down before Beni had a chance to agree.

"Well then," Emil sighed. "I have a lot of work to go over in my cabin. Good afternoon."

"Oh, I'm going, too," Viola said in a rush, tripping over her chair as she hurried to stand up. She caught herself on the back of the chair and straightened her shoulders nonchalantly, but Dr. Bartos saw it. Beni saw it.

Emil looked obviously at Beni at gave a nod at her. Beni let out a groan and would have told Dr. Bartos that he might as well do it, because she wasn't about to be accepting help from Beni. But Emil had already thrown a few bills on the table and was hurrying off in the other direction, anxious with caffeine and excitement.

Breathing a sigh, Beni looked to Viola incredulously. "Do you want me to help you back to your room."

She stood up a little straighter and glared back at him. "No."

"Good."

Beni turned and was ready to scurry off to the bar, but Viola's voice stopped him. He didn't miss the faint slurring of her words.

"What do you mean 'good'?"

Beni let out an impatient sigh and turned back to look at her. "I did not want to walk you back to your room just to make sure you don't fall on your stupid face."

"I'm not_ that_ drunk."

Beni snorted, glancing down at the table. "You had three whiskeys and not even half of a salad."

"I have a high tolerance," she told him with an exaggerated smug expression on her face. "It's_ inherited."_

"Good for you," he said. "I am going back to my room."

Viola frowned. "Really? You're really not going to walk me back to my room in my condition?"

"You said you have a high tolerance."

"Well _obviously_ I'm sloshed. Even I know that."

"Why should I walk you back?" he asked. "It is the middle of the day. We are on a barge. Nobody is going to kidnap you."

She crossed her arms over her chest and sniffed. "Well having to sit and tolerate_ you_ was the whole reason I was drinking so much at all, so I think it's the least you can do."

"I did nothing to you."

Viola raised her eyebrows. "Well you were still the reason and my heels are much too high for those stairs."

"So take your shoes off."

"You're walking me down," she said in a commanding tone, and took a firm hold of his elbow for good measure. Beni was surprised she'd deigned to touch him at all, and from the expression on her face, she'd clearly surprised herself a little, too. But she was too proud (or too drunk) to let go, and straightened her shoulders regally before taking an uncertain half-step forward. "Lead the way, my insufferable chaperone."

Beni rolled his eyes and nearly dragged her through the dining hall and over to the stairs that led down into the cabins. The sooner he dropped her off, the sooner he could go checking doorknobs for unlocked rooms. If he was going to be in the vicinity of the first class rooms, anyway, he might as well capitalize off of the carelessness of the wealthy.

Viola was clearly one such careless rich girl, stumbling about in high heels after drinking too much and eating to little - and for what? What reason did she have to drink so much? She knew nothing of sorrow or pain or emptiness - of starving or worry or hopelessness. Beni was the one who had a right to get drunk all the time - but he didn't. Being drunk was a liability; it made his mind fuzzy and his fingers too daring. Most of the times he'd been arrested had been thanks to an inebriated attempt at picking a pocket, when vodka made him too stupid and too sure. Beni like to drink - he considered himself entitled, really, after all that he had suffered in life - but getting drunk was for fools.

Obviously, Viola was a fool.

She had no idea how easy her life was, and how accommodating everyone was to her. Everyone accommodated women. It was an annoying societal expectation and Beni hated it. Why did he have to walk stupid, drunk Viola down to her room? If she was a man, he wouldn't have had to do that.

When they came to the stairs, she let out a little groan, blinking hard at the narrow and dark descent.

"I oughtn't have drunk so much," she muttered. Her eyes wandered over to his and took a little too long to narrow at him. "Why must you be so revolting?"

Beni let out a snort and tugged her down the stairs, annoyed every time she jerked him back when she grasped hold of the railing and reeled. The whiskey was really getting to her now, soaring through her system and making everything dizzy and light. Beni could see that. It had been just enough time and she was at her drunkest, and he was having to pull her down the stairs.

"You really are revolting," she went on to tell him. "I simply can't stand you and the only thing that made it better was the whiskey. It's not even my fault, really. You're just perfectly insufferable, but I had to tolerate you on Dr. Bartos's account - "

"Or you could have just stayed in your room," Beni muttered under his breath.

"Oh, no, I couldn't have done that. Dr. Bartos insisted and he really is such a dear..."

Beni decided to ignore her, breathing a thankful sigh and few silent prayers when at last they reached the cabins. He hurried her along the hallway back to her room, ignoring her constant babbling about just how terrible he was. Beni didn't need to hear about that from a stupid, spoiled drunk girl like Viola Chamberlain.

"...and you're really just a perfect...a perfect weasel, when it comes to it. That's what you look like. A weasel. Has anyone ever told you that you bear a strong resemblance to a weasel?"

"Yep," Beni said, and gave her a little shove towards her door. "Here's your room. Where is your key?"

Viola blinked hard, looking herself over for a long moment before noticing her purse on her arm. She opened it and fumbled with its contents for an eternity, droning on all the while in her haughty, annoying voice:

"And that's why it's so utterly ridiculous that you would dare suggest refusing to sleep with me. You're so many leagues below me, the very proposition is laughable..."

Beni wondered at how she could manage such an obnoxious vocabulary while barely maintaining her own balance. She found her key and held it up with a triumphant grin.

"I mean, we both know that if I was to invite you in, you'd jump at the possibility. We _both_ know that."

Beni glared at her. "I don't want to come in your stupid cabin."

"Of course you do. You're dying for the opportunity."

"I would rather pull out my own teeth."

Viola blinked hard and squinted at him. "Do you have teeth?"

Beni rolled his eyes. "Of course I have teeth. I have all of my teeth."

"Really. That comes as something of a shock."

Beni's hands clenched to fists at his sides. "Shut up. You are at your room and safe now. I am leaving."

"Well at least wait until I get myself inside - "

"No. You are a spoiled little bitch and I am tired of listening to you."

Viola's eyes widened, and her mouth opened in surprise. Her hand holding the key dropped to her side, and she turned and stared at him in astonishment.

"How dare you say such a thing to me!"

Beni's eyes glinted, a strange and happy kind of satisfaction making its way through his veins. "You are. You are a bitch, and anyone can tell. I would not go in your cabin if you paid me, and neither would any other man."

She tensed, and the corner of her mouth jerked. "Of course they would. Any man would want me."

There was a desperation in her tone that he found refreshing.

_"Nobody_ wants you," he said, a grim smile on his face. "I don't want you. And if you cannot even get me to want you, no one will."

Viola stared at him, wavering on her feet and shifting her weight. She reached a hand out and clutched onto her door for balance. And she stared at him. She stared and stared, searching for something...But he could see in the soft pain in her eyes, in the trembling of her lower lip, how she believed him. How she feared his words in the most hollow parts of her. How she fretted the way he was certain all women fret, over being wanted.

She thought that if she pranced about arrogantly enough, that men would fall at her feet. But clutched somewhere deep inside of her was the gaping loneliness, and Beni had found it. He always could find it.

He saw her throat jerk with a nervous little swallow, and her eyes blink away the threat of tears. And then she looked at him earnestly, quietly.

"Won't you come in for a moment?"


	23. Religion

_Author's Note: I'm really trying to get back into this story and writing in general. Fingers crossed this keeps up! _

_Disclaimer: The characters of _The Mummy_ are the property of Universal Studios__. _

* * *

**1925**

* * *

**Religion**

_November 19, 1925_

Viola's head felt fuzzy and sharp at the same time, a pain throbbing away at her temples and all around her forehead like a mallet. Her throat was tight and dry and she was desperate for water but too lazy and nauseous to move. With an reluctant groan, she peeled back her eyelids and squinted at the pattern of bright sunlight on her ceiling. It flowed and twisted in a way that made her sick, and she quickly closed her eyes again.

What time was it?

How long had she been asleep?

Her body felt heavy but her mind felt heavier as she tried to trace back through the vague events of a seemingly short day. She remembered sleeping in and she remembered lunch with Dr. Bartos at his insistence; she remembered something about escargot, though she couldn't think about that rich meal long without feeling sick again.

Sucking in a breath, she rolled over on her side and forced her eyes open again. Her bedside table made her frown, and she blinked hard a few times to be sure she was seeing what she thought she was seeing. She reached a fumbling arm out and knocked over a half-empty bottle of gin. That explained this dreadful headache.

_You had three whiskeys and not even half of a salad,_ a funny little voice whispered through her mind. God, had she really drank all that gin after three whiskeys? Why would she do that?

She blinked hard at the gin bottle on her nightstand, thankfully capped as it lay there on its side. Surely she hadn't drank that much by herself. She couldn't possibly drink that much on her own...

Viola reached across the table for the bottle again, and her hand brushed against something peculiar. With a frown, her fingers closed around the strange object and she dragged it off of the table, holding it up to her face.

Now that was very odd.

Her brow furrowed up as her liquor-hazed mind tried to trace through her vague understanding of religious symbols. Everyone in Viola's family considered themselves too progressive and scientific for religion - except of course for that one missionary cousin who'd been eaten by cannibals somewhere in the Amazon - and her knowledge of such things was mostly anecdotal. She turned the six-pointed star around between her hands in interest, searching the crevices of her mind for the belief system that matched the familiar gold shape.

She was determined to figure out what religion the star belonged to; as long as she focused on that, she didn't have to bother with figuring out why it was on her nightstand in the first place.

The star hung on a simple black twine, knotted into a necklace. Viola didn't have any reason to wear a religious pendant, so obviously it had to belong to someone else. She told herself that maybe the maid had left it on accident. Maybe it had slipped off of her neck or something...

Of course, the twine hadn't snapped anywhere, so it was rather unlikely that it had slipped off of anyone's neck on accident. But maybe it had been in her pocket, or...or something. The maid must have dropped it.

Obviously, the maid dropped it.

Taking a deep breath, Viola put the necklace back on the nightstand and gingerly pulled herself to a sitting position. Her head rushed, dizzy and painful, and before she could even attempt to get a hold of her balance, she was tripping out of bed and rushing to the bathroom. She imagined she felt better after retching her brains out, and straightened up shakily to look herself over in the mirror above the sink. She met her own eyes in the reflection and grimaced.

Though her face was red and blotchy from getting sick, she had to assume she hadn't looked much better before. She was dressed only in a wrinkled slip, and her kohl was smudged all around and under her eyes. Not a trace of her bright red lipstick still clung to her swollen lips, but the skin around her mouth was stained pink from where it must have rubbed off. The back of her hair was mussed in the guiltiest way, but what was worse, her neck and chest and décolletage were stained with love bites. She glared at herself in the mirror and reluctantly admitted to herself that the necklace couldn't belong to the maid.

"Well, who was it, you little slut?" she mumbled to herself irritably, pushing the hair away from her face. In that moment it occurred to her that the pendant was a Star of David, which meant whomever it was had been a Jew. She might have felt a sense of satisfaction at figuring that out if she wasn't so perturbed by the notion of sleeping with someone she couldn't even remember.

Viola really was a good girl.

She'd slept with Jonathan, of course, but that was only because she thought he was going to marry her. And, well...nobody waited til they were married anymore. She was liberated and progressive and she'd marched with the Suffragettes when she was a teenager; if she wanted to sleep with a man, she damn well could. Why should men be the only ones allowed to carouse like animals? Philosophically she admired the notion that she could do anything a man could do - including have sex before marriage. But in actuality...

Well, in actuality, she refused to be an open-legged floozy, perhaps because she was a hypocrite - perhaps because she personally couldn't take such women seriously. She was above such people and she wouldn't be party to them. She'd drink and smoke as she liked, and if she _happened_ to meet a man she was willing to sleep with...well, she'd do it when discretion. She certainly wouldn't get reeling drunk and hop into bed with a Jew.

A Jew who couldn't even afford a real chain for his beloved religious charm, no less.

Good God, she'd slept with someone_ poor,_ hadn't she?

She'd vowed to never be one of _those_ vamps, frolicking in the slums with immigrants and Negroes. She liked jazz as much as the next person, but she'd simply die before she got herself in trouble with a half-breed baby. But now she'd gone and slept with some - some - well, _someone_ who was probably smelly and foreign and superstitious enough to cling to the notion of a higher power -

_You believe in all of them?_

_Yes._

_Well that's silly. I don't believe in any of them. _

A fuzzy snippet of a conversation floated to the front of her mind, the words strangely vivid though the memory was dreamlike. She tried to take comfort in the fact that something about his accented voice was familiar - that perhaps she hadn't slept with _just_ anyone...

Breathing a sigh, she pushed those thoughts away for the time being and started running a bath. She told herself she'd feel infinitely better after a bath and an aspirin. And she did. She brushed her teeth and dumped the rest of the gin down the sink, and she felt a little better after she washed her face with some cold water. She soaked in the tub for maybe twenty minutes, breathing in steam and trying all the while to push away pieces of an odd conversation that kept playing in her head like a radio show.

_Maybe you're stupid for not believing in any of them._

_Now, don't be ridiculous. No educated person believes in them. You just believe in them because you're from some dumpy, backwards corner of Eastern Europe. _

_I'm from Hungary._

_That's right. Like Dr. Bartos._

_Dr. Bartos believes in God._

_Dr. Bartos is an old man. Lots of old people believe in God, but not anyone young or modern. _

Viola sighed and massaged some shampoo into her hair, eager to smooth away the evidence of a shameful afternoon. She stared up at the ceiling and tried to think of anything else - anything else at all - but she kept hearing that horrid voice.

_Modern people are the worst. They do not believe in anything. _

She knew whose voice it was, though she chose not to realize it. She knew but she shoved it away and pretended it belonged to handsome Hungarian Jew with thick, curly dark hair and a strong nose. She might convince herself it was a handsome Jew. She might if she kept tossing reality across the room and refusing to let _that_ face appear in her mind's eye.

She pulled herself from the bath and combed through her hair, pinning waves into place as she went so they'd dry properly. Then she put on her make-up and found a dress - a plain, purplish number her Aunt Eunice would approve of. It wasn't until she hesitantly opened her jewelry box in search of her pearls, perhaps, that she thought of Beni Gabor.

She sucked in a breath and felt the color leave her face, staring down into the box in a terrible kind of shock. Her hands shook as she dragged out every piece of jewelry she could find, but it wasn't there. The diamond headpiece her father had bought for her at Tiffany's wasn't there.

She snapped the box shut and whirled around to stare at the Jewish star on her nightstand again.

_I believe in things. You don't have to believe in God to be moral, you know._

_All you care about are your fancy clothes and your jewelry and getting married. _

_That is _not_ all I care about. But even if it was, I absolutely couldn't stand for being lectured by a superstitious hypocrite who probably can't even spell his own name._

_Why am I a hypocrite?_

_Oh, please. Doesn't "God" look down on fornication?_

_God will forgive me._

_I can't possibly imagine why._

_Because I will ask him to._

_Your God is remarkably accommodating. _

The sun was steadily lowering and the light that shone through her window came in at a slant, a dark, saffron yellow. It touched on the star and twinkled dully, and something occurred to her - clear and mean as the gin she'd dumped down the sink.

_Won't you come in for a moment? _she'd asked him in the hallway, uncertain and lonely and vaguely terrified.

_No._

_Please?_

_Why should I go in your cabin? You will just keep making fun of me._

_I won't._

_I don't care. I don't want to come in._

_...What if I gave you something? _

Surely she hadn't given him the headpiece. It was the only silly glint of jewelry she owned that mattered. Surely she hadn't given it to someone like him. She could never be that drunk. It was impossible. He must have done something sneaky and underhanded to take possession of it, and she'd die before she'd let the likes of Beni Gabor keep her Tiffany's headpiece.

She straightened her shoulders in determination and strode across the room, snatching his necklace from the nightstand and stuffing it into one of her handbags. She wasn't quite sure how he'd come to have her headpiece, or why he'd left this stupid star, but she was going to get it back.

Viola tugged on her shoes and rushed out of her cabin, slamming the door closed behind her.


	24. Overtaken

_Disclaimer: The characters of _The Mummy_ are the property of Universal Studios__. _

* * *

**1925**

* * *

**Overtaken**

_November 19, 1925_

Minnie eyed the clock with a fearful kind of desperation, holding her breath as she absently broke off pieces of a fig for Fadil. He was a mess, juice running down his face and body in dark-colored streams, but she barely noticed. Rashida had been gone for over an hour. Surely if everything was alright at the prison, she would have returned by now...

The other day, Rashida had returned to her apartment in angry tears, ranting about how someone from their tribe was determined to have Basim killed. Minnie couldn't quite follow what she was talking about; in an effort to avoid making Rashida uncomfortable, Minnie had never asked her what her and Basim's situation was. Over time she'd gathered that they weren't from Cairo, and something Rick or Izzy had said gave her the impression that they were from a nomadic desert tribe. Minnie found that all very fascinating, but she was afraid to ask Rashida about it, and Basim was quite secretive about his past. So she was more than a little lost when Rashida tried to tell her what was happening at the prison, especially in her emotional state.

After Rashida was finally able to compose herself, Minnie gathered that a prisoner had been hired to kill Basim, and Rashida seemed to think it had to do with their tribe.

Today Rashida had gotten a call from the prison that she needed to come immediately. She left the restaurant in a rush, only briefly stopping by her apartment to let Minnie know where she was going. Since then Minnie hadn't been able to focus on much of anything. She watched the minutes slide by like hours on the face of Rashida's clock, willing it to be a little closer to Fadil's nap time. If something had...happened...to Basim, it would be better for Rashida if she didn't have to stay composed for her son.

With a sigh, Minnie glanced at Fadil and got up off of the floor in search of a washcloth. She found a rag in one of Rashida's drawers and dipped it in a jar of water, cleaning the baby off mechanically before scooping him up and carrying him into Rashida's bedroom.

Rashida said Fadil had rolled off of the bed a couple nights ago, so she'd made up a bed of blankets for him on the floor until she could get a hold of a crib. Minnie laid Fadil down and crept out of the room, closing the door quietly behind her. With a sigh, she dropped into the chair in the other room, eyeing the clock impatiently.

She drummed a tune on the arms of the chair, trying not to imagine what must be happening at the prison. Was there any way Basim could still be alive? Any way at all?

Agitated, Minnie got on her feet and crossed the room to the pot of coffee on the stove, pouring herself a cup. She didn't really want to drink coffee, especially when she was already so anxious, but she imagined there might be something soothing about having a hot drink. Instead, she started to sweat after the first few sips, and put the cup down, disgruntled.

Minnie didn't know Basim too well, but she was worried about him just the same. For all she knew, Basim rightfully deserved his fate...but she just couldn't see how. Basim may not have been an honest man, but he was fairly simple. She couldn't imagine him concocting some foul plot on purpose. He just kind of...went along with whatever Izzy and Beni wanted, and it simply seemed impossible that he could have ever done anything that warranted his life.

With a sigh, she glanced at the clock again.

She wished she could write. She wished she could distract herself with invented people in invented situations...but she hadn't thought about such things in quite some time. Maybe her family had been right. Maybe she belonged back in Wisconsin on the farm.

Maybe she shouldn't have let Dave Daniels go.

Minnie closed her eyes and tried not to think about Dave. Thinking about him certainly wasn't any easier than thinking about Basim...

A key jingled in the lock, and Minnie jumped, breathing in a gasp. She whirled around, anxious and braced, watching the door swing open and Rashida slip inside. She had a veil over her face and Minnie couldn't tell if she'd been crying.

Rashida closed the door slowly and locked it, staring for a while at the doorknob like there was something very interesting about it. Minnie saw her shoulders slump, and knew.

"Is Fadil in bed?" she whispered.

"Yeah," Minnie said. "I just laid him down - "

"Good."

Rashida crossed the room and collapsed in the chair, reaching a shaking hand up to her face to pull away the veil. She _had_ been crying.

Minnie ran a tongue over her lips and took a breath. "Is everything alright?"

Rashida closed her eyes, her lovely face contorting with a grimace. She shook her head numbly.

"Basim is..."

Minnie waited as she gasped down a sob and tried again.

"Basim is...he has been killed."

That was all she could say. The pain had overtaken her in body-wracking sobs, and Minnie didn't know what to do. She wanted to go to her and put a hand on her shoulder, but she couldn't move. She stood near the kitchen and tried not to stare at her. She reached for her coffee cup, but she couldn't bring herself to take a sip.

At last she was able to pry a few awkward words from her lips, "Is there anything I can do?"

"No," Rashida whispered. She sucked in a breath and wiped the tears from her eyes. "They will bury him in the prison graveyard. With murderers."

"I'm so sorry, Rashida," Minnie finally remembered to say, feeling stupid and callous that it had taken so long. She swallowed hard, shifting her weight where she stood. "Would you like me to stay with you? Or...go...?"

Rashida opened her mouth to respond, but she was interrupted by a knock on the door. She frowned in confusion, staring across the room at the door like she couldn't discern what it was or why such a noise would come from it, and Minnie took a few half-steps across the room.

"Do you want me to, um, get that?"

Rashida nodded her head, and Minnie scurried over to the door, unlocking it with shaking fingers and tugging it open. Her gaze collided with a set of dark, grave eyes - a face she had seen before, but that she found no less frightening now. She gulped, paralyzed where she stood, and it took her entirely too long to remember that she should say hello. The word was caught in her throat, though, and Rashida spoke before she even had a chance, in a voice that was more calm and even than Minnie would have anticipated:

"You may leave, Minnie."

Minnie nodded her head, staring up at the man with the tattooed face questioningly before slipping past him out into the hallway. She glanced behind her once, only to see the man limp with some difficulty into Rashida's apartment and close the door. Something about him made Minnie feel nervous and sick, but she told herself that Rashida knew how to handle this strange man - whomever he was - and kept walking down the hallway, against her better judgment.

In Rashida's apartment, a tense quiet had stilled the air all about Rashida and her unexpected guest. She stared up at him from where she sat, her eyes blazing with a mixture of anger and confusion, and her hands were clenched tightly into fists in her lap.

"My brother is dead," she said in a voice that shook more with fury than sadness.

He glanced down. "Rashida...I'm sorry..."

"You should be sorry, Ardeth," she snapped, perhaps before she could stop herself. "Omar Qadir hired some ruthless criminal to kill him! I thought you were going to get my brother's pardon from the council. And I have been waiting for you to return so that you could straighten things out at the prison - "

"Rashida..."

"Where have you been?" she demanded.

He stood there wordlessly in front of her for a moment, staring back into her burning glare with an expressionless face before slowly reaching a hand up and untying the cloak on his shoulder. She watched in frustrated confusion as the dark fabric slipped from his chest, and he gingerly turned around to show her his back. She gasped in surprise. The dark skin and muscles were crossed and crisscrossed with deep lacerations, the mean red bites of more whips than she could bear to count. Rashida put a hand over her mouth in shock, getting to her feet and hurrying over to him.

"Ardeth..." she whispered.

He turned and met her eyes.

"I have taken on the punishment fit for a fornicator," he told her quietly. "One hundred lashes for Allah...in a few weeks, I will take one hundred more lashes for the tribe..."

Rashida closed her eyes and swallowed hard.

"And a few weeks after that, one hundred lashes for you."

A tear slipped down her cheek, and she gasped like she'd touched something hot. Her eyes snapped open and she stared up at him in confusion. "For me?"

"The tribe demands it."

Rashida shook her head. "Allah."

He reached up and touched the side of her face, brushing her tear aside with his thumb. She met his eyes in sadness and regret, and put her hand over his.

"You should not have done such a thing for me..."

"Rashida," he said, sharp and sure, "I would take a thousand lashes for you. I would do anything so that you could be mine."

She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him down to kiss her. So many terrible emotions were jumbled up inside her, making her heart beat too quickly and her head dizzy. She felt hopeless and exhilarated all at once; she was frightened and empty from the loss of Basim, but Ardeth's words made her head hum with life and something like opportunity. Her body trembled because it was too much...it was all too much. And the only thing she knew was that she wanted to forget everything and be lost in something wonderful. She wanted to be lost in the man she loved.

His arms tightened about her body and she could feel his heart thudding against hers. She twisted her fingers in his hair and he pulled the hijab from her head. More than anything else right then, she wanted him. She pulled him to the floor gingerly, though he winced from his sore back. And they were together, as they were meant to be, she thought. As they should have been so long but not so long ago, married and entwined. Before Basim was banished and before she left the tribe, this was what had been promised them. What they had promised one another. She told herself it no longer mattered what disgusting men had touched her - who Fadil belonged to - none of it. She was Ardeth's and he was hers.

They made love in the quietest, hottest part of the afternoon.


	25. Abysmal

_Author's Note: And finally we have "Abysmal" back, with some slight alterations. Hooray!_

_Disclaimer: The characters of _The Mummy_ are the property of Universal Studios__. _

* * *

**1925**

* * *

**Abysmal**

_November 19, 1925_

One of the customers Rashida had abandoned an hour ago was still seated at the restaurant, half-heartedly sipping at a lukewarm cup of tea while he absorbed himself in several pages worth of notes. Only a few days before, Allen Chamberlain had received that research he'd requested from Emil, and he'd been pouring over it tirelessly for the past three days.

He might have been a self-centered man, but Allen never let the opportunity to scrutinize someone else's work elude him. He loved picking apart research, scribbling scathing criticisms in a notebook until he had enough to write a full-fledged rebuttal, peeling back every argument like flesh from bone until the thesis was left with less than a withered skeleton of an argument. It was one of Allen's few, genuine joys in life, and he especially liked doing it to Emil's theses, which were always nauseatingly candid, optimistic, and even funny. Somehow Emil managed to make such laborious dissertations enjoyable to read, even though there wouldn't be a single person with any sense of humor reading them. Allen had shredded a good half-dozen of them in the past, but so far, with this piece on an imaginary city of wealth, his notebook was perfectly blank.

Two days of reading over and over the information, and he hadn't come up with a single, critical quip. Not one.

The first time he read through Emil's research and came up blank, he'd told himself he'd merely been captivated by his colleague's writing style and a bit too much scotch. But now that he'd exhaustively read the paper well over a dozen times, he was quite vexed. He'd cross-referenced everything Emil had written; he'd scoured the library at the Museum of Antiquities in search of more extensive texts. He'd read and re-read everything and now...

And now...

_And now,_ sitting at his favorite table of a certain café, under the cool relief of the fan overhead, with a cup of Earl Grey going cold, he was coming to the unsettling conclusion that Emil Bartos might very well be right about Hamunaptra. It might just exist.

Allen let out a long sigh and adjusted his monocle, particularly intrigued by the information Emil had compiled matching contemporary descriptions of the city to a thorough interview with his desert guide, Beni Gabor. Allen might have liked it best because Emil's naïve excitement over the peculiar fellow was just as obvious to him as this Mr. Gabor's untrustworthiness. It amused him that Emil couldn't see what a dreadfully bad show Beni Gabor was putting on. He was so blinded by their shared heritage, when any fool could see just from reading about him what a sham Beni was.

Just the same, he had an uncanny way of describing Hamunaptra the very same way contemporary historians did. Either the man was considerably better educated than he let on, or he'd actually been to Hamunaptra. Allen decided he'd have to meet the man in person to make that particular judgment call. And he loathed the idea that he might not get the chance to make his acquaintance until after Emil returned an archeological hero.

Good God, it might really be out there. And if it was really out there, Dr. Bartos was about to become the most important archeologist of the century. The thought made Allen seethe, and it was suddenly much too hot for the tea he'd ordered. He raised his hand above his head and snapped until the little Arab waitress made her way over.

"Can I help you, sir?"

"Scotch on the rocks," he snapped. "And there'd better be a damned ton of ice."

She hurried off and Allen let out an abysmal sigh. He turned his attention back to the page in front of him, a scowl darkening his face as he glanced over the well-worn words again. He tossed Emil's research aside and leaned back in his seat, reaching distractedly for his pipe.

He supposed with the holidays coming up, he could go down to Aswan and evade the blood-curdling hype in Cairo over Emil's discovery. Surely after New Year's, the excitement will have died down...though the thought of spending the next two months in Aswan seemed nearly as insufferable as spending them here.

Allen didn't care much for his family. The entire tribe spent all of their time engaged in droning arguments about philosophy and history, blandly one-upping each other with obscure references and casual Latin phrases. Allen supposed he belonged among them and had been bred from such as these, but God, did he detest spending time around them. He could hardly stomach the droll banter over whatever useless topic they were exhausting. Most of his relatives were really quite simple-minded, and just argued for the sake of flashing whatever new vocabulary word they'd come across.

He hadn't any use of pseudo-intellectuals. He never had.

Just the same, the Chamberlain clan was likely preferable (if only by a margin) to being in Cairo when Emil showed his stupidly jovial face again, carting with him a wealth of artifacts and immeasurable status. Of all the optimistic twits...

_For the love of God, Emil doesn't even believe in the theory of evolution!_ he thought to himself, and chuckled, because he was a Chamberlain and the Chamberlains did so love irony. That was the sort of exclamation that would win a hearty chuckle from his relatives. At the very least, they understood his sense of humor - or at least recognized that he had one where it had eluded most everyone else Allen came into contact with. And at least they always kept the liquor cabinet well-stocked.

Well, then it was settled, he supposed.

He glanced up at the window across from him and stared outside, not particularly paying attention to the people trudging along in the heat of the day. He might have noticed an attractive woman stride past the window, agitated and determined, a strange kind of look in her bright green eyes. He might have noticed her, but only briefly, before turning his attention back to Emil's research again.

The woman hurried along in clicking heels, making her way out of the tourist district and back into the dirtier backstreets of her neighborhood, having taken the shortcut through that clean little glint of town to get from Rashida's apartment to the one she shared with Rick O'Connell as quickly as possible. She strode along like she was being chased; as though at any moment, she might just break into a run.

She came to the decaying building and pulled open the door, taking the steps by twos up the narrow stairwell to the second floor. Her pace didn't slow until she came to her door, dug out her key, and jammed it in the lock with a shaking hand. She pushed it open and was met immediately by the sound of a waking grunt. She gasped in surprise.

There on the sofa was Rick O'Connell, his hair still wet from a recent shower, wearing only a pair of underpants as he dozed under the slight relief of a fan. His eyes were open now, blinking at her in that kind of confusion that comes from being woken up suddenly. She looked down at him with her wide green eyes and he stared back at her with an expression he knew she couldn't read. Something about the way her bottom lip jerked made him think he'd scared her.

"Rick," she whispered. "You're back."

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry - I was at Rashida's today - I would have missed it if someone called to have you picked up - "

"No one called."

"I would've come."

"I know. I can walk."

He saw her throat jerk with a little swallow, and her eyes brim with tears. She blinked hard and turned away to close the door. He watched her in interest. "Is something the matter?"

She sniffed, turning back to him with her bright, glittering eyes.

"Basim is dead," she whispered.

Rick sucked in a breath. "Oh."

"Rashida got the call from the warden today. She's very upset."

He nodded his head slowly, pulling himself up to a sitting position. He stared at her steadily for a moment before asking, "Are you okay?"

She swallowed hard, staring at the floor and the wall and the window; everywhere but at him. She took several deep breaths and told the fan on the table:

"I don't think I can stay here in Egypt any longer."


	26. Crippling

_Disclaimer: The characters of _The Mummy_ are the property of Universal Studios__. _

* * *

**1925**

* * *

**Crippling**

_November 19, 1925_

Ardeth stared down at Rashida in the quiet where they lay on the floor, watching the sun play over her black hair and bring out the gold of her eyes. She stared back up at him with an expression he couldn't read, though he thought something about the way her mouth was set seemed sad. He brushed some hair off of her forehead, and she sighed.

"We should not have done this."

He glanced away, and slowly nodded his head "I know."

Rashida pressed her lips together thoughtfully. "I suppose we will be married soon enough..."

Ardeth tried not to groan, looking her in the eye seriously. "Rashida...there is more I need to tell you about the council's decision."

Rashida frowned and pulled herself up to a sitting position, her hair falling all about her shoulders. Her face was calm, but she eyed him in something like suspicion.

"Alright."

He sighed and told her that the Council would not accept Fadil as the heir to the caliphate since he was illegitimate. He told her was obligated to marry another girl first and have a son -

"Who?" she demanded quickly. He wasn't one to miss the anxious way she was clenching and unclenching her fists.

He winced a little when he had to tell her, "Laila Qadir - "

_"What?"_ she exclaimed, but quickly snapped her mouth shut, casting a furtive glance at her bedroom where Fadil still slept.

He reached for her hand, but she quickly jerked it away.

"Rashida, it is the only way - "

"No!" she told him in a hissing whisper. "It is not the only way! You truly expect me to share you with the daughter of Omar Qadir? Her whole family blames Basim for her brother's death!"

_"Everyone_ blames Basim for her brother's death," Ardeth cut in impatiently, though he regretted the words as soon as they left his lips. He looked up at Rashida apologetically, but she just shook her head, pulling herself to her feet.

_"I_ don't blame him," she said, picking up her dress from the floor and holding it against her body. She glared down at him darkly. "Do you?"

Ardeth closed his eyes wearily. "Rashida..."

"Do you?"

He let out a long sigh, rubbing his temple. "Rashida, I will not speak ill of a man who has only today met his end - "

"Ardeth." He looked into her burning, determined eyes. "Tell me the truth."

Her request sent a sting of pain through his whole body, and a sort of sickening feeling seized his stomach. The truth. There was too much truth between them; too much truth that had been hidden and covered up and brushed aside. There was the truth that she had loved Basim more than him; that she'd given him up to follow her brother into exile. There was the truth that they both knew, that Basim's cowardice brought Omar Qadir's son to his untimely death, and there was the truth that Rashida refused to hold him accountable. She loved him too much.

There was the truth that Ardeth had paid a man named Jacques Clemons a hefty sum of gold to kill Basim.

Ardeth took a deep breath and looked up at his beloved again. "You know what your brother has done, Rashida."

She blinked, staring back at him in confusion. Her gaze wandered to the window and she let out a long sigh, staring into the piercing golden rays of midday.

"I think you need to leave before my son wakes up," she said quietly.

Ardeth let out a tired sigh, but he nodded his head. With some difficulty, he pulled himself up to his feet and got dressed wordlessly. She put on her dress, looking away from him all the while. She didn't look up until he was opening the door, and their eyes met for only a moment. Ardeth's heart broke within him to see the betrayal and sadness in her eyes. He couldn't bring himself to say goodbye.

As he left her apartment, he wondered if she would even marry him now. Would she even return to the tribe? He'd taken the lashes and lied about her son, claiming Fadil as his own, and for all of that, she might refuse to come with him. For all of that, she might choose to stay here in Cairo, preferring to live as the shamed mother of a bastard son than as his honored wife.

Perhaps there was no point to the journey he was making now. Perhaps he was better off letting Basim Abdul rest peacefully in a prison graveyard.

Still, he kept walking. He strode on through the crumbling neighborhood, through the smoking heat of the day, onward towards Cairo Prison. He'd promised Omar Qadir Basim's head. He'd promised; and he would certainly not be able to wed Rashida without it, if she would indeed still have him.

That sickening feeling overtook him again. He felt nauseous and weak, a walking corpse among the living as he trudged past gossiping women and children playing in the alleyways. He felt broken and defeated, a man with no sense of what he was to do any longer. The guilt was crippling.

All of his life, Ardeth had conducted himself based on a code of honor. He believed that if he behaved honorably, Allah would reward him. And he had always been a good man - a man others looked up to, a man others approved of. Everything in his life had been done rightfully and dutifully, and he valued nothing more than that ethical code.

Until he fell in love with Rashida.

He didn't think anything could matter more to him than his honor, but Rashida did. He didn't realize how much more he loved her until she was gone; up until Basim's exile, Rashida and his sense of honor had never come into conflict. But then she left. Then she left, and he came to the slow and painful conclusion that he was give up anything to be with her again.

Or would he?

It occurred to him suddenly, with such a force that he had to stop walking, that he could leave the tribe today. He could marry Rashida and they could make a life together in Cairo. He could turn his back on his father and the council and the tribe, and he could go his own way. For the first time in his life, he could go his own way.

He'd already lied about Fadil being his son. He'd already lied about committing adultery with Rashida. He'd already sacrificed his honor for her...and what had it gotten him? He knew the only way Rashida would ever be allowed back into the tribe was with the righteous death of her brother. He'd arranged for that, and stolen away one of the most important person in her life. Not because he wanted to - because of the tribe. Because of what he knew they'd demand for atonement.

But that wasn't all they had asked. They had demanded the stripes on his back, forever marking him as dishonorable. They'd demanded a new heir with a woman he did not love; with a woman his beloved Rashida despised. The tribe had demanded it, and he might still be left with nothing. For all of his sacrifice, Rashida might reject him after all.

Ardeth stood there in the empty street of the slum with the sun beating down on him, sweat beading on his brow and sliding down his face. He stood there and he could not go another step towards Cairo Prison. He could not ask for the head of Basim Abdul to deliver to Omar. He could not pay a price and mutilate Basim's body, leaving him unfit for heaven. He couldn't do it. He couldn't look Rashida in the eyes some day, knowing he had done it.

Basim was dead; that was enough. That was enough guilt to soil his hands and his conscience. It might have been what Basim deserved...but Rashida would never forgive him if she knew.

Ardeth took a deep breath and turned back in the direction of Rashida's apartment, where he'd left his horse tied in the shade with water. He would ride back to the tribe, and he would ask to leave the Med-Jai. He would ask them to burn away his sacred tattoos, and he would return to Rashida. He would do anything she wanted...anything at all. He knew he had lost his honor; he could not lose her.

With renewed determination, he found his horse and picked his way through the alleys, back and back until at last they found the openness of the desert. With the freedom of the sands before him, he urged his horse to a jolting gallop, clenching his teeth against the wind and the jarring pain that rippled like a shock wave through his back. He braced himself against it and rode on, the reins wearing marks into his hands. He was vaguely aware that he was making good time, but in his heart he couldn't reach the encampment fast enough. At last that row of dark tents appeared and an exhilarating anxiety took hold of him. He dismounted before his horse had even fully slowed to a stop, striding towards the first person he saw. He didn't even notice the urgent look on the other warrior's face.

"Malik, assemble the council quickly - " he started to say, but Malik wasn't listening to him.

"Ardeth! We have been searching for you everywhere," Malik said, taking hold of his arm. "Your father fell from his horse this morning."

Ardeth's eyes widened, and he pushed past Malik with determination. "Where is he? How is my mother?"

Malik reached and took his arm again, pulling him to a firm halt and staring up at him with wild, desperate eyes. "Ardeth...your father is dead."


	27. Foreign

_Disclaimer: The characters of _The Mummy_ are the property of Universal Studios__. _

* * *

**1925**

* * *

**Foreign**

_November 19, 1925_

_"You."_

Beni knew as soon as he heard that angry hiss that he was in for trouble. But before he could slip casually away into the crowd around the bar on deck, her hand was closing over his shoulder and her nails were digging into his skin through his flimsy shirt.

"Hey!"

She jerked him back so he was facing her, and he met her dark, narrowed eyes dismally. With a groan, he reached up and rubbed his shoulder, a wounded look on his face.

"That hurt - "

"Where is my Tiffany's headpiece?" she demanded, putting her hands on her hips.

He blinked. "What?"

"My headpiece, you pathetic little dolt! Don't think I don't know you took it - "

"Of course I took it," he grumbled. "You gave it to me."

Her jaw dropped, and she stared at him in blistering shock. "I would do no such thing!"

"Well you did," he retorted. "You said you liked my Star of David so much, you would trade me for it."

"Oh, your Star of David!" she muttered, yanking her purse off of her shoulder and rifling through it in a violent rage until she grasped hold of the necklace. She shoved it at him furiously. "Here, take it. Now give me back my headpiece."

Beni glanced at the necklace in her hand and smirked, holding his hands up apologetically. "Oh, I am so sorry, but that is not the way it works, Miss Chamberlain."

"And why not?"

"Because I am not looking to make a trade."

Viola's eyes narrowed, and her fist clenched white about the Jewish star. "Ooh, now you listen to me, you filthy little gutter rat! You're going to give me back my diamond headpiece, or I'm going to report it stolen!"

Beni's mouth twisted thoughtfully, and he glared back at her, neither of them blinking for a moment as they watched each other for their next move. He saw a strange look in her eye, a twitch in the corner of her lips, and he guessed she was trying to recall how she'd come to share a bed with him that afternoon. He guessed she was trying to remember how she'd allowed that...and if she'd liked it.

He couldn't help a smirk, and that same corner of her lips twitched again.

"Wipe that smarmy grin off of your face," she clipped. "Are you going to give it back or am I going to have to contact the authorities?"

A high-pitched, wheezing chortle burst out of Beni's lips. "The 'authorities'? There are no police on this boat - "

"Well I'm certain they have a brig, and they'll keep you til the real police can haul you off," she said. His smile dampened substantially. "And then you'll not be able to drag Dr. Bartos out into the middle of the desert, will you?"

Beni groaned, his shoulders slumping in defeat. He hated the smug smile that crossed her painted lips when he said, "Fine. Come on."

He pushed past her in the direction of the stairs, and she walked along beside him, too arrogant to be genuinely pleased. Beni didn't care. She could keep that stupid, superior smirk on her face; she couldn't change the fact that she'd drank a little gin (well, alright, _a lot_ of gin) and thrown herself at him like a desperate teenager, grasping for attention wherever she could get it. She couldn't change the fact that she'd slept with him and that he knew her now. He could recall the shape of her body and the touch of her lips and the sound of her sighs whenever he pleased.

_He_ hadn't been drunk, after all.

"How did you coax me into giving you that headpiece, anyway?" she asked as they descended the stairs - him first and her right behind.

Beni shrugged. "You wanted my star. You thought it would be...what did you call it? A 'real gas' to show up to your aunt's house with a Jewish star. You said they would think you had lost your mind."

He glanced over his shoulder at her, and she was frowning. "I don't remember saying any such thing..."

Beni snickered. "You probably can't remember much."

"Actually, I do," she told him airily. "I can remember our whole conversation about God and religion."

Beni's brow furrowed skeptically, but he didn't look back at her. "I think you are imagining things." He glanced up at her with an impish smirk. "We did not do much talking."

"Well we_ did_ talk about religion. I remember it," she told him, firm and certain.

He could only scoff. "Maybe you had a dream. You were so very interested in all of my necklaces - "

Viola huffed a sigh. "We talked about it. I remember. You said you hated modern people because we don't believe in anything."

Beni let out a wheezing groan, at last reaching the floor of his cabin and turning back to look at her with incredulous eyes. "Why would I waste time talking about religion when I could have been screwing you instead?"

Her nose wrinkled in disgust. "Good God, must you be so vulgar? Someone might hear you."

"What do I care if they hear me?"

"I suppose you'd just as soon they _did_ hear you."

Beni shrugged, walking a little faster down the hallway towards his cabin.

"You're a dreadful little man, I hope you know," she told him haughtily. Beni rolled his eyes, coming to a stop in front of his cabin door. He thrust his hand in his coat pocket and dug around for his key. He could feel her glaring at him steadily, an annoying and conceited expression fixed on what might otherwise be a lovely face. "Did you hear me?" she asked him pointedly. "I said you're small."

Beni turned and looked at her impatiently, desperately fighting the urge to slap her face. "You can insult me all day, but I already had you, didn't I? And you did not think I was so 'small' then."

Viola scoffed. _"Please."_

His mouth twisted in a nasty smirk, and he told her happily, "You got a noise complaint."

Her eyes widened. "You're making that up."

"I'm not," he said. "Someone came and knocked on the door - "

"I don't remember that - "

"You made me answer it because you said that it is what a gentleman would do - "

"You're making this up," she said again, too desperate to be firm. "You couldn't possibly be so remarkable." She crossed her arms over her chest and huffed a sigh, but Beni only chuckled. He unlocked the door of his cabin, satisfied that Viola had shut up for the time being, and slipped inside.

Viola waited out in the hall.

"Do you want to come in?" he asked with an implicative raise of his eyebrows. "You know, I am leaving to go into the desert tomorrow with Dr. Bartos, and I will_ so miss_ your company. I do not have any gin, but - "

"No thank you," she told him firmly, glaring at him through the narrowed slits of her eyes.

Beni chuckled, slipping to a dark corner of his room. He pulled a small knife from his pocket and used it to pry up a loose seam in the wainscoting on wall, and was just able to force his fingertips underneath it and grasp the edge of her headpiece. From across the cramped cabin, he heard a little scoff.

"Well. It's certainly good to know it wasn't going to be lost," Viola said.

Beni glanced over his shoulder, a little surprised at how close she had edged to the doorway. "You can't be too careful."

She watched him as he crossed the room, and she took the headpiece from his hand slowly when he begrudgingly held it out to her, a thoughtful look on her face.

"I don't believe you about the noise complaint," she said. He snickered, still eyeing the glittering headpiece in her hand. "I never make too much noise at all."

"I do not doubt that you have bored many men before me."

Viola's eyes narrowed again, but she didn't snap a retort the way he expected she might. She studied him, biting her bottom lip thoughtfully, and all Beni could do was stare back at her in perplexity. She had her stupid headpiece, though he couldn't see why it mattered when she had a whole jewelry box full of valuables in her room. She had her headpiece, and she could leave, but she just kept scrutinizing him, and it was starting to make him uncomfortable.

"There was_ really_ a noise complaint?" she demanded, a hawkish kind of glint in her eyes.

Beni let out a whiny groan, rubbing his face wearily. "My God,_ yes._ Why are we still talking about this?"

Viola took a little half-step, not quite into the room. She leaned stiffly against the doorframe and shrugged in a painful attempt at appearing casual.

"I don't know," she said. "I suppose you could say I'm...curious..."

Beni frowned, impatient and puzzled. He was more than ready to get rid of Viola Chamberlain. She wasn't any fun when she was sober, and she wasn't much more fun when she was drunk.

She swallowed nervously and took another little step into the room, reaching behind her after a moment to pull the door shut. She looked at him with an expression somewhere between nervousness and embarrassment - both of which seemed foreign on her ordinarily snooty face. She was almost pretty, looking at him like that.

"I'm curious," she said again, straightening her shoulders matter-of-factly. And there she was again. There was Viola Chamberlain with her nose in the air, her back to straight, her posture too severe. She told him briskly, "Suppose I'm curious what all the fuss was about."

"The fuss?" he asked incredulously.

"Well I very well can't remember causing such a commotion, can I? But you've got me terribly curious over whether you were _really_ worth disturbing the neighbors over."

Beni eyed her suspiciously for a moment, and he thought there was something defensive about the way she was clutching her purse.

"You want me to screw you again."

Viola let out a heavy sigh. "If you_ must_ put it that way..."

"Oh," he said, a dirty smirk crawling up the side of his face, "I must."

She met his eyes in something like determination. "Fine."

With an air of reluctance, she crossed the room over to him and met his eyes. Before she could even breathe whatever haughty little words were on her lips, he took her in a hard kiss - the kind that startled and suffocated her all at once. She closed her eyes because she couldn't stand his smug, weaselly face, and he had her in that cheap, cramped little cabin in the belly of the barge. He had her, and everything was moving much too fast for her to think or question. But when he rolled away from her, casually picking up a cigarette from his nightstand, she was acutely aware that she'd made a mistake.

She'd made a very grave mistake.

This was the reason she'd sworn she'd never go slumming. This was the reason, though she hadn't known it til just then. She was bored and dissatisfied and listless, and it would suit her better to stay with men who shared her condition. But she couldn't very well be satisfied by broad-shouldered Ivy League football players now, could she? She couldn't very well pass her boredom with bored men, because people like Beni Gabor didn't have the luxury of boredom.

She could hardly say she liked him. She certainly couldn't say that she liked him. But he'd taken her cheap and quick, like no one ever had. She'd been devoured like a dessert by a starving man, and she couldn't imagine anything more exhilarating. And that's why this was such a grave, grave mistake.

"I'll be leaving now," she told him as calmly as she could, sitting up from his bed.

He might have shrugged, puffing languidly on his cigarette. "Okay."

Viola swallowed hard, just then remembering she still had his Star of David. She got up on shaking legs and found her purse where she'd left it on the floor, retrieving the necklace she'd shoved back in there when he refused to take it earlier. She held it out to him.

"Here."

Beni didn't look particularly interested in the necklace, but he snatched it out of her hands just the same. He offered her a sarcastic, "Thank you."

Viola got dressed as quickly as she could, though she felt uncomfortable and awkward under his half-lidded gaze. When at last she tugged both of her shoes on, she steeled her spine and looked at him airily.

"That was hardly worth a noise complaint," she told him in a voice she was certain masked the truth.

He only scoffed around his cigarette. "Then you should quiet down."


End file.
